


Colour Me Yours [Riren/Ereri/Eruri Erotica]

by DiabLolita



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abercrombie Eren Yeager, Alternate Universe - High School, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Armin is a stalker, Artist Levi Ackerman, Basketball Player Eren Yeager, Blow Jobs in a Car, Coach Nanaba, Deadbeat dad drama, Erwin is a drug dealer, First Time, First Time Bottoming, Gay Character, Gay Pride, Goth Levi Ackerman, Graffiti, He's basically a genius, LGBTQ Character, Levi Has Feelings (Shingeki no Kyojin), Levi Has Issues (Shingeki no Kyojin), Levi has Synesthesia, Levi has a photographic memory, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Rimming, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, Top Levi Ackerman, Zeke and Faye are twins, ereri, eruri - Freeform, love is love, riren - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiabLolita/pseuds/DiabLolita
Summary: Eren Yeager has everything he always wanted: good grades, great friends, and a bright future. Already the captain of the basketball team as a junior, it was not uncommon for college scouts from all over the country to crowd the stands to see him in action. Everybody knows his name...and that's exactly how he likes it.But is everything enough if you don't have anyone to share it with?Levi Ackerman and his band of art freaks exist on the fringes of Paradis High School. With hopes, dreams, and a mission to change the world from the shadows, he has plenty of secrets. Only a select few know his true identity...and that's exactly how he likes it.When circumstance crosses their paths, an unlikely affinity threatens to expose that which lives in the night and casts into shadow that which was bright.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Eren Yeager, Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager, Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	1. The Rogue Titan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@magpiequeen444](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40magpiequeen444).



> Hello my lovelies and welcome, or welcome back! I hope you enjoy this story, which drops our beautiful, lovers eternal right into the thick of their high school lives.
> 
> I would like to give a quick shout out and VERY special THANK YOU to magpiequeen444 who spent tireless time and effort helping me and listening to me whine about CMY.
> 
> See you inside!
> 
> ♡DiLo

The piercing screech of the referee's whistle echoed in the gym as the other boy's body thudded against the floor. Eren whipped around, slamming the basketball down in frustration, and turning his heated glare on the man with the whistle as he spoke the inevitable.

"Foul!"

"What are you talking about? I never touched him!"

"Settle down, son"

"Eren! Bench."

Turquoise eyes flashed in furious defiance, but Eren stalked off the court and sat down, his eyes narrowing darkly at the member of the opposing team he had flattened when he ripped the ball out of his grasp. He exchanged a glance with Coach Nanaba who nodded imperceptibly and turned back to the game. It might not have worked out this time, but the coach would turn a blind eye to his aggressive gameplay. She always did, when she wasn't openly encouraging it. 

The Paradis High School Titans were ruthless and Eren was their captain. A different kind of coach might have objected to his methods, but Nanaba liked to win and Eren was a winner. If he had to smear the court with a little bit of blood in the process, so be it. The cheering of the crowd echoed off the walls and ceiling of the gym and Eren sat back, watching Bert and Reiner sleekly rebound and pass the ball to Mike who easily sank the half court shot as the clock ran out on the third period. Eren was on his feet before the coach could even gesture. 

"All right, all right! We have them on the run, but we aren't gonna ease up. I don't want to just win. We are sending a message to the other teams this season that the Titans are gonna crush everyone who meets us on the court. I want to see the fear in their eyes."

She looked at Eren, her blue eyes glinting. 

"Take it home for me, Rogue."

Eren bared his teeth and put his hand in.

"Titans on three! One, two, three, TITANS!"

Eren and his crew burst back onto the court. He exchanged a look with Jean and the other boy nodded. The next ten minutes were a blowout. Eren, Jean, Mike, Bert, and Reiner were a well oiled machine of destruction, Coach Nanaba's A-team. Eren, Jean, and Mike had played together since middle school and knew each other's gameplay inside and out. Bert and Reiner were freaking monster's on the court. Bert was just over six foot three and faster than someone his size had a right to be. Reiner was two inches shorter but built like a brick shithouse; running into him was like slamming face first into a brick wall. 

Mike was also massive, taller than Bert at six foot five, but slower. He might not be competitive in the pros, but his uncanny ability to sink a shot from literally anywhere on the court made him an incredible asset to the team. Eren and Jean were evenly matched on the court and best friends off of it. They competed in everything but both knew that when it came to basketball, Eren had the edge. He had a killer instinct that Jean and his other teammates lacked. Maybe it made him an asshole, but he was a winning asshole, and everyone loves a winner. 

He was already being scouted for College ball and had every intention of playing the sport he loved for as long as he possibly could. Eren took a breath, centering himself as he whirled and pivoted down the court. The crowd faded and he could feel his heartbeat and the sweat as it poured off his body, splattering on the hardwood. Jean had possession but he was trapped, he passed the ball to Reiner who was also hemmed in and couldn't break out without fouling. Eren saw his chance and took it, slipping past the man riding his ass and charging up the center of the court. 

Reiner's free throw bounced high but Eren was already mid-leap, ripping the rebound out of the air and slamming the ball through the hoop. Sound came back to Eren as his feet touched the ground. The roar of the crowd was so deafening it almost drowned out the buzzer ending the game. He high-fived his teammates and made his way off the court, glancing at the scoreboard. He nodded to himself, doing some quick mental arithmetic. He was definitely a team player, but for his own personal training, if he didn't score at least half of his team's points per game, he wasn't working hard enough. It was only the second game of the season, so being undefeated didn't mean much just yet, but he was a Junior now and for the sake of his future he refused to let up. 

The team was jubilant as they made their way to the locker room. Eren soaked it in, ripping his jersey off and dumping it into the laundry bag. One of the perks of being a Titan was that the 'equipment crew' took care of all the team's laundry and other menial tasks to keep everything running so the players could focus on training and winning. 

But that wasn't all they took care of...not for Eren at least. 

He sat down heavily on the bench in front of his locker as his teammates streamed past to hit the showers. He was unlacing his sneakers when a flash of gold caught his eye and the team's equipment manager appeared at his elbow with a cold bottle of Orange Gatorade, his favorite. 

"Y-you were really great out there today. That slam dunk was e-epic, man!"

Eren raised an eyebrow and quaffed the citrus electrolytes. 

"Thanks, kid." 

Armin wasn't really that much younger, he was also a junior, but his head barely made it past Eren's shoulder when they were standing. He also just seemed younger, with his stuttering and blushing and utter lack of social skills. He loved basketball, though, and was an asset to the team in his own way. He was a die hard fan and had been in charge of equipment for a whole season before Nanaba overheard him breaking down game statistics one day with one of the other maintenance nerds. 

The coach accepted him which earned him a sort of benign neglect from the rest of the team. For Eren, he was mostly an annoyance at first, until he found his own use for the guy. He didn't need a statistician to break down his or any other player's numbers- he already knew them. What he did have use for though, was a way to help him blow off steam when he wasn't on the court. Eren wasn't interested in dating- relationships only distracted players from the game, but that didn't mean he didn't have urges like everyone else. 

It also helped to keep a low profile since if he did decide to date, it wouldn't be with any of the girls who clustered around him eagerly vying for his attention. He had little experience, but he knew himself well enough to know at sixteen that he had absolutely no interest in women. He loved the attention though, so he kept that particular information a closely guarded secret. It also wouldn't help him much on the court. Distinguishing himself in a competitive league was hard enough, so while he wasn't necessarily ashamed of his sexuality, he didn't need it to be the thing that was known about him- he preferred his reputation to be about his ball handling...not his balls handling. 

Eren smirked as he plucked the dry towel from Armin's fingers and swiped it across his forehead, slinging it around his neck. The blonde's blue eyes followed the motion thirstily, idol worship apparent on his face. He bit his lip, drawing Eren's eyes to his lips. He wasn't particularly skilled, but what he lacked in ability he made up for in enthusiasm. 

"I think I'll wait a bit to hit the showers."

Armin seemed to shake himself, a rosy red blush rising in his cheeks. 

"Uh...yeah, yeah of course. I'm staying around too…"

Eren nodded and pulled his phone out of his locker to check his messages while his teammates jostled around him. When the locker room was almost vacant Eren stripped and made his way into the showers. He turned on the water, enjoying the rigorous cascade for a moment as it washed the sweat and grime from his body. The curtain twitched as Armin slid in behind him silently, even redder now than he had been before. He was always like this, no matter how many times he sucked Eren off, blushing and stuttering like the virgin he most definitely was...not that Eren wasn't just as inexperienced. They didn't kiss...it wasn't like that. Armin might have wanted more, but Eren was out of league and he knew it, so he didn't overstep. 

The shorter man slipped to his knees without preamble and gripped Eren's cock, stroking him a few times before fitting his lips around him. He sucked and stroked and Eren leaned against the wall, groaning and gripping the boy's unfashionably long hair. Eren was tired so it took longer than it usually would have, but within minutes he was holding Armin's head steady as he pumped cum down his throat. 

The other man broke away when he was done, coughing and sputtering. Eren leaned against the wall and smirked as he came down from his orgasm. He knew Armin didn't really like it when he did that, but it just felt so good...way better than just blowing his load down the shower drain. If he wanted to do that, he could take care of it by himself. He pulled the shorter man up by the tops of his arms once he was finished purging and pushed him against the cool green tiles of the stall wall. 

He reached down and stroked Armin's dick, squeezing it slightly to get a feel for it in his hand. He knew his playmate had been hard during the blowjob, but the last few minutes had definitely killed his buzz. He stroked it harder and Armin moaned. Eren didn't really give a shit about whether or not the kid got off, but he loved the feel of a dick in his hand and would let him go when he was good and ready. 

Armin's body quivered in his grasp. 

"So how did I play today?"

Armin's breath came out in a gasp.

"A-amazing...you always look so cool. Ahhh."

"I did...didn't I?"

Eren leaned his forehead against the shower as Armin came apart, convulsing and shivering as he came. He let him go and turned back to his shower, ready to get home and have dinner now that his needs had been satisfied. He finished cleaning himself, indifferent to whether or not Armin remained behind him or slipped out of the stall. 

He dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of bluejeans, t-shirt, and his Titans athletic fleece and ran his hand through his wet hair so that it would dry faster. The late November weather was unseasonably warm, but it was still chilly enough for him to catch a cold if he wasn't careful and getting sick meant being benched. He turned up his collar and stepped out into the gathering twilight, heading across the nearly empty parking lot to his steel gray Kia Sportage. His dad would want to discuss every aspect of the game over dinner and probably for a couple hours after that. Eren turned up the radio as he pulled smoothly out of the lot...for the moment at least, by himself in the dark car, he could just think about nothing. 

°☆°

Levi watched from the rooftop as the last car pulled out of the parking lot. He put up the hood of his black skeleton hoodie and zipped it straight up the center of his face before grabbing his duffel bag and hefting it onto his shoulder. Between stencils and about twenty cans of spray paint the fucking thing weighed a ton, but it was worth it. He crept down the stairs from the roof, careful to avoid the security cameras. 

He had done his homework. His extracurricular homework, anyway. 

If he had to get all the way down to the security office on the first floor without being detected he would never make it, but all he had to do was turn off the wifi from the server in the maintenance room on the fourth floor and he was home free. He ghosted down the dark hallway and placed the bag down silently. Kneeling by the door, pulling his jackknife lock-picking tool out of his pocket. A satisfied smile twitched on his lips under the skull that was zipped over his face as the door swung open.

You could get almost anything on the internet. 

Levi went directly for the security console, turning off the wifi with the click of a button, disabling both the cameras and the whole building's wireless security system. He snorted at the 'Wave of The Future' grant the school had so excitedly publicized at the beginning of the year. Nice of them to let him know everything would be so much easier to bypass. 

He left the office open and picked up his bag again, striding more confidently, though no less silently, down to the cafeteria loading dock where the rest of his accomplices would be waiting. He would have preferred to do it himself, but as it was it would take the four of them several hours just to stencil it all out. They were already running short on time, since the first security shift got to the building at five a.m. He checked the watch that was wrapped around his sleeve and clicked the timer on.

He walked through the shadowy cafeteria, picking locks as he went and swung open the back door. Waiting silently in the darkness were his three accomplices, all identically attired in black jeans, boots, and zipped up skeleton hoodies. They didn't need to discuss the plan. They had it all worked out well in advance. Levi opened the bag and handed out the stencils, a copy of the whole piece he had designed, and the spray cans each of them would need. Eld, Ollie, and Gunther were all talented artists in their own right, they would have to be to execute Levi's design, but the point was to have it look like it was all done by the same hand.

The plan was his and the design was his, so the risk was his. The guys were gutsy, loyal enough to risk expulsion or even a trip to juvie to help him, but none of them had big enough balls to go through with it on their own. It's what made him the leader.

His watch ticked down as the crew silently emptied one can of paint after another. It wasn't unusual for them to work quietly; large scale vandalism was always a risky business.

Levi stood back, surveying his work. His art had always been the culmination of a soul deep need to express himself. As he became more aware of the world, of injustice, unrest, and inequality, his brush became the sword of his rebellion. His graffiti comprised more politically intense topics than his school projects, and he didn't hold back. As a result, his work was gaining significant notoriety downtown among both the city's bohemian residents and the beat cops.

His anonymity was celebrated by his fellow reactionaries and cursed by the city officials who would make an example of him. As a result, his identity was a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of his closest friends. Ordinarily, he would never risk being unmasked by marking up _his own school_  
......but recent events had forced his hand.

The impetus for his lack of caution made his blood run cold. Seeing one of his best friends, shaking and bruised, showing up on his doorstep in the aftermath of a violent rape, would turn his stomach for the rest of his life. He had tucked Petra into his bed and washed the bloodstains out of her underwear and jeans with his own hands. 

She wouldn't go to the police. She was terrified of what her mother would say...what their classmates would say. " _You were asking for it_ ," " _What were you doing in his office after hours?_ " " _That's what happens when you wear those kinds of clothes_." All victim blaming bullshit. Levi respected her decision, but that didn't mean he would allow her rapist to just continue on with his hallowed existence in a cushy job, influencing students. There was also no way Petra was Vice Principal Stevens' only victim. 

_His judgement cometh, and that right soon._

The sky was still an inky black when Levi followed his accomplices through the quiet halls and locked the loading dock door behind them. They would wait for him just off campus, across the street and down the block in Gunther's older brother's car. Hopefully they would have it home before he realized it was missing. He surveyed his work one more time before heading back upstairs to turn the cameras on, barely suppressing the impulse to pull his phone out and take pictures. It had turned out even better than he imagined it would. If the response was what he thought it would be, though, his hard work would be all over the internet in just a few short hours. If there was any kind of investigation, he shouldn't compromise his phone by having photos with an older timestamp on them than everyone else in the student body.

Free of the bag of empty paint cans that he sent on with the others, Levi made his way back to the mainframe to switch on the cameras and then stealthily up to the roof. He grabbed a second bag that he had left in the shadows, closing the door behind him before it set off the alarm. He pulled out the coil of rope swiftly and trick knotted it around one of the chimney exhausts before swinging his legs over the ledge. He looked out over their high school's small section of town for a moment. He could see the community college off in the distance, its stubby clocktower rising artificially high on the horizon because it was set on a hilltop. The sprawling athletic fields and highway ringed the other side with small two-family houses marching between them. 

The cloudy sky shifted overhead and the bright face of the moon caused light to flash off the carabiners that he clipped through his belt loops. He clipped the pack on across his chest and stood with his back to the edge if the building before lowering himself fearlessly over the four story drop. He coiled the rope around his forearm and let the slack hang a few feet below him as he free climbed down the drainage pipe on the side of the building. Between the joints in the pipe, the window ledges, and the uneven brickwork of the prewar building, it didn't present much of a challenge, but his heart was still racing as he reached the bottom. 

He longed to unzip his mask and take a cleansing breath of the early morning air, but he wasn't out of danger yet. He still had to cross in front of one of the main security cameras, which were now recording. With three purposeful tugs of the rope, the trick knot came undone and the length fell at his feet. He scooped it up and stowed it away, adjusting his appearance before backing away from the building. He moved slowly and deliberately, careful to train his eerie skeleton face directly at the camera, He knew the guys would tease him, but he couldn't help pausing, placing his hand over the spot where the skeleton's heart would be and taking a mocking courtly bow. 

He then turned and strode confidently away, only to run when he was out of the shot, jogging the block and a half to his getaway car and sliding confidently into the passenger seat, shedding his sweatshirt as he did so. As soon as the door was slammed beside him, Gunther gunned the engine and the car sped off into the early morning. 


	2. Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren discovers he is not the center of the universe.

Eren rolled over, blinking awake at exactly five thirteen a.m. as he had for the last two years. He rolled out of bed and stretched his long limbs, popping and cracking his joints until the rest of his body felt as awake as his mind. The guys on the team thought he was a natural, but he knew better: the only thing that came naturally to him was his passion. The rest was hard work, sweat, and waking up at five in the morning,  _ every _ morning, rain or shine to shoot hoops. He pulled on his under armor leggings, long sleeved t shirt, and shorts and crept silently down the hallway past his parents' and little siblings' bedroom, waiting until he got to the front door to put on his sneakers.

He had learned through a substantial amount of irritating trial and error that the combination of his sneakered feet and the floorboards was enough to break through any morning's oppressive tranquility. Both Zeke and Faye were light sleepers and if he woke them up, one or both of the twelve year old twins would insist on trailing him to the park and he just didn't want to deal with that, today or any day. His morning routine was as much for his mind as it was for his body: the bounce of the basketball ringing, uninterrupted, through the quiet morning had taken on a meditative quality for him that he couldn't quite explain.

He had a basketball hoop in front of the house but he walked past it, shivering slightly as he stepped out into the cool November morning. The concussive bounce of the ball against the asphalt and backboard might be a neutral sound to him, but it would wake up half the neighborhood and he didn't feel like dealing with people's complaints.

He thought about his younger siblings as he walked the three blocks to the local urban park. With their long dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes people easily pegged them as twins, but they looked nothing like him at all, not to mention the fact that they were both near clones of his father. Eren looked so much like his mother that it was a common family joke that his mom brought him into the family from a previous marriage, but that was only because they discounted the traits they had in common- their chocolate brown hair and impressive height. Eren also had his paternal Grandma Dina's blue-green eyes, a shade so unusual it could only be inherited.

He didn't really understand as a four year old why his parents wanted to have more children when everything was fine with just the three of them...why they would work so hard and his mom had to take medicine that made her cry and throw up and yell at them all the time. The kids themselves weren't so bad, though. Eren remembered creeping into the babies' room one night when they were only a few weeks old and both of them were awake but quiet. They had stared up at him with their big blue eyes and just smiled, reaching out their chubby little fingers and gripping onto him like he was the most important person in the whole world. 

They could definitely be annoying at times, but for the most part they worshipped him and he felt comfortable enough with that dynamic. They were grateful for his attention when he was in the mood to notice them and didn't bother him too much when he wasn't, since they had each other to keep themselves occupied.

They only became truly annoying when they were separated for any length of time, to the point where his parents had even stopped trying to convince them to sleep in separate bedrooms. Trying to split them up caused bitter screaming and tantrums that lasted for weeks and inevitably- whether they were locked in or not, they would find a way to sneak into each other's rooms after everyone was asleep. Eventually they claimed their victory and the fourth bedroom was turned into a dedicated space for the three of them to study- and for the overflow display of Eren's basketball trophies.

The sky was lightening to a stormy gray by the time Eren reached the park and started warming up with free throws, sinking basket after basket. It would be a better warm up if he was playing one on one, but at least when he was alone he could think. He slowed his breathing as he ran back over last night's game in his mind's eye, reenacting all the plays he could remember, battling phantom opponents just as aggressively as he had the day before when they had been in front of him. 

He checked his watch as the sun broke over the clouds, satisfied with his forty minute workout. The neighborhood was waking up as he headed back home, lights flickering on in kitchen windows as he passed and sleepy commuters balancing their coffee tumblers on their cars before heading off to work.

He dropped his basketball on the porch and walked inside, less concerned now about waking people up. His mother was in the kitchen cooking breakfast and she smiled up at him when he entered the room. His dad pushed back from the breakfast table, resting his newspaper on his knees. His wheelchair glided smoothly along the linoleum floor as he turned to face his eldest. 

"There's my  _ Rogue Titan _ ! Up at the crack of dawn again, boy?"

Eren smiled at the nickname before stooping slightly to kiss his mom on the forehead. Coach Nanaba had bestowed it upon him the first time she had ever seen him play: during team tryouts his freshman year. He had dominated the court, even giving the juniors and seniors a run for their money, always just on the outside edge of admirable gameplay. His father loved it. He was the one who taught Eren to be ruthless in the first place. 

The man whose presence filled the kitchen despite his disability, had been a world class athlete, and still was, depending on your metric of judgment. Scouted out of high school onto a Division One collegiate team, Grisha Yeager had his life and career all planned out. He was poised to become a first round draft pick for the NBA until the car accident that stole his future. The drunk driver who slammed into him at four in the afternoon one day when he was driving to practice would spend the next two years in jail, but it was a poor consolation compared to the fact that his victim would never walk again. 

The one thing it  _ had _ done though, was given him the rest of his life. If it hadn't been for the accident he never would have met Carla, the physical therapist who reignited his will to live after everything he lost. They were married a year later and two years after that Grisha won his first Paralympic gold medal on Team U.S.A.'s wheelchair basketball team. He was retired from sports now but had written several books and travelled the country as a motivational speaker. He was Eren's biggest fan. He was also his harshest critic. 

"You know it, old man."

Grisha smiled broadly at him. Eren's family had never missed a single one of his basketball games. They came and left separately, but they were always in the stands, Zeke and Faye cheering him on and his mom on her feet screaming louder than everyone else. His dad would watch like a hawk, picking apart the game as he played so they could discuss it afterwards. 

"That's what I like to hear! Now hit the shower before breakfast, I can smell you from here."

Eren snorted and turned on his heel to head to the back of the house, passing the twins on their way to breakfast. Faye was bright eyed and Zeke looked miserable and groggy as she chatted his ear off. They both gave him a wide berth when they met in the hallway. Faye wrinkled her nose.

"Ugh, Eri you stink." 

Eren raised an eyebrow at her, purposely brushing against his little sister as she yelped and tried to evade him. Zeke held her in place and snorted, exhibiting the highest level of disloyalty of which he was capable. 

"Shut up twerp or you'll be walking to school."

Shrieks and giggles receded into the kitchen as he made his way to the bathroom and stripped. He loved Mondays. The Titan victory and his exploits on the court would be all anyone could talk about. He stepped out of the shower refreshed, pulled on a bright, Titan- red polo shirt and blue jeans and artfully gelled his hair into casual disarray. He couldn't wait to get to school and be the center of attention. 

° ☆ °

Eren pulled up to the school and crossed the parking lot just a little later than he would have preferred thanks to some traffic in front of the twins' middle school, though judging by the scene out front, it probably didn't matter. Media vans and police cars were parked in front of the building with flashing lights and camera equipment fighting for dominance among the throngs of students and teachers trying to enter the building. Eren pushed his way to the front as the beleaguered security guards finally swung open the front doors. 

Eren walked forward, barely conscious of the hushed silence as hundreds of eyes fell upon what, mere hours ago had been innocuous light green tiles. Right in the center of the entry wall was a magnificent mural stretching from floor to ceiling. Lady Justice stood in majestic grayscale, her hands empty of scale and sword which lay off to the side in a heap, the metallic chains and cups twisted around blade and hilt rendering both ineffective. Her hands reached forward, groping in the darkness of her blindness. Red tear trails stained her cheeks and seeped grotesquely through the material of her blindfold. Kneeling at her feet, several people in torn, bloody clothes gripped her skirt in begging supplication, smearing it with their blood. 

Looming behind her, his red face twisted in dark, joyful, fury, stood the elegant figure of Satan, his ram's ears curling above his head, with deep set, black soulless eyes set over a fanged mouth. He was pointing down the hallway with a taloned finger outstretched. Eren's mouth fell open as he took in the shockingly descriptive artwork. Other students around him gasped and he turned to see them moving down the hallway, stepping carefully over what looked like large puddles of blood connected by footprints, which he realized we also carefully drawn on the tile floor. 

He walked down the hallway to the corridor with the first lockers and saw how each locker had been painted with the horrified face of either a wounded human, weeping angel, or furious demon. A growing circle of students paused in the center of the hallway where it looked like the mural ended. A wide splatter of "blood" covered the floor here and seemed to flow out from under the door of Vice Principal Stevens' office.

Eren's mouth dropped open. An artistically styled caricature of a beheaded Mr. Stevens knelt on his knees before the figure of the Grim Reaper, tall, sleek and evil, its skeleton face staring chillingly from under its black hood. The Vice Principal's eyes and rictus grin seem to glint in the fluorescent light of the hallway as it lay toward the bottom of the picture at an awkward angle. One of the reaper's boney hands held the bloody scythe and the other held an unfurled parchment with a list of offenses which were signed in Stevens' "blood" at the bottom.

Arching over both figures was the quote "His judgment cometh and that right soon" in a gothic font. To the bottom right of the reaper's long black robe was a tag, with the words "Reaper" scrawled in silver next to a malevolently grinning skull. Eren's blood ran cold as his eyes scanned down the accusation on the scroll. If even one of them were true Vice Principal Stevens had a lot to answer for. Eren assumed the police in front of the building were there to take a report on the vandalism, but maybe that wasn't the only reason they'd been called. Either way, the first bell rang and he had to leave the scene. Security and faculty tried in vain to herd the students down the hall and to their first classes as quickly as possible. Their efforts were successful after a great deal of effort, but wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. Every single person who entered the building had no choice but to view the entire mural and one thing was certain...nobody would be talking about the basketball game. 


	3. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the agents of Fate literally collide.

Levi strolled into Paradis High School, unperturbed by the fresh coat of paint drying over his beautiful mural. Street art was inevitably painted over- impermanence was its nature- what mattered was the impact it made when it was visible. On that note, Levi couldn't have been happier with the result. It took  _ four _ whole days for the police to approve painting over the mural and in that time it had been viewed by  _ every single person  _ who entered the building. It was reported on the local news and had gone viral on nearly every single social media platform- immortalized by his classmate's cell phone cameras. 

Once the police released the security footage of Levi in his skeleton hoodie bowing to the camera, his 'Reaper' signature was linked with other works of his politically charged street art that dotted the downtown area. This, in turn, ignited even more fervor surrounding the Reaper's identity- or rather excitement- that an already mildly infamous street artist was either a high school student or faculty member at Paradis. 

His own notoriety aside, after a huge public outcry, the police opened an investigation into the Vice Principal. He hadn't shown his face in the school since that first morning and rumor had it that multiple students and female faculty members were coming forward with testimony about his behavior that they had previously been silent about. Whether or not they would be able to build enough of a case to prosecute, Arthur Stevens would never work in a school again.

Both the school and the police had done everything within their power to discover the Reaper's identity to no avail. Levi had disposed of the paint cans himself and put his concept drawings for the mural in the binder with his other completed artwork, which currently sat in a locked safe in his Uncle Kenny's storage unit. He had considered also getting rid of all the skeleton sweatshirts, but he needn't have worried. So many students showed up to school wearing the hoodie after the footage was released Levi wanted to laugh out loud. He didn't wear his to school, but he returned the garments to the rest of the guys with a lighthearted shrug. The police couldn't arrest them all. 

For two solid days the police and the principal had scoured lockers and interviewed students tirelessly but nobody was talking. Levi had no problem keeping a straight face and would even go so far as to admit he enjoyed looking the police dead in the eye and 'no sir-ing' them until they had no choice but to let him go back to class. There were a few sticky moments where it seemed that the police were putting more heat on the honors art students, but they couldn't prove a damn thing. Levi was careful to never even doodle in his street art style at school. 

There was also the matter of Ms. Foote, the head of the art department and probably his favorite teacher of all time. The aging hippy (who was a brilliant artist herself) went hysterically ape shit on the police for targeting her students. She lectured them for twenty minutes on how proud she was of the Reaper and how his (or her) brave resistance and activism would change the world and should be celebrated. 

Levi particularly enjoyed being championed by someone he respected. Not that he would ever really be able to let her know what it meant to him. Until he graduated at least. 

He stowed his books in his locker and shut it just in time to see a flash of light ginger hair as Petra barreled into him, squeezing him in a tight hug and burying her face in his chest. He gasped as his back hit the metal locker behind him but closed his arms around his childhood friend all the same. Levi wasn't a person who had many friends, but he would risk everything for the people in that category. 

Since the murals went up, a change had come over Petra, obliterating the darkness that had plagued her honey brown eyes after the rape. Friends since third grade (when she had stood between him and a bunch of bullies who made fun of his habitually dour facial expression) he knew Petra had steel in her spine, willing to resist injustice with every bone in her tiny body. The rape had taken that from her, but slowly, she was getting it back. Maybe he helped show her it was there all along. Eld, Ollie, and Gunther walked up behind her as she released him, turning her shining eyes to the rest of the crew as they exchanged greetings.

They were a tight-knit group and Levi was grateful to have them. Eld had joined him and Petra in fifth grade and Ollie and Gunther were already friends when they were all in the same middle school art program. The five of them had been inseparable ever since. They were all rebels, but Levi was the edgiest among them, frequently displaying through his attitude and personal style that he gave absolutely  _ zero _ fucks what anyone thought about him. He wore his pin straight, jet black hair in a military style undercut but let the fringe hang over his eyes. His clothing style fell somewhere between punk and goth, and inevitably included calf high, steel toed, black combat boots and various pieces of his uncle Kenny's old military regalia that he had repurposed ironically (with his uncle's blessing). 

He didn't shy away from cosmetics if they suited his mood and spent an inordinate amount of time painting his nails and hands with different symbols and perfecting his makeup. Today, thick black eyeliner made his ice-blue eyes pop, the contrast to his deathly pale skin heightened by black, blueberry flavored lipstick. He had several piercings on his face- on his lower lip and right eyebrow including several in each ear. A mixture of hoops and thin chains that brushed his shoulders glittered in the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. He had been feeling a bit extra this morning so he painted a small Leviathan cross at the corner of his left eye to complete his look. 

He did have tattoos, thanks to his uncle's liberal attitude about body autonomy, but they were all in places that he could successfully hide from his mother. His uncle happily provided any necessary parental consent as long as he promised not to upset her until he was eighteen.

Petra was a soft, pixie version of an art nerd and had a penchant for cat-ear headbands, cartooning, and drawing star freckles on her elfin face. She favored ripped jeans and billowy tops in shockingly bright colors that Levi would view as mortally offensive on anyone else. 

Gunther was the quietest in the group, in both manner and dress, favoring the same blue jeans and black, short-sleeved t-shirt pretty much every single day. His dark hair was closely shorn but long enough in the middle to gel into an ever present, barely there mohawk. His drawing style was strangely at odds with his 1950s style 'greaser' appearance- he drew absolutely stunning nude portraits which, in Levi's opinion, rivalled Rubens. 

Eld was their resident hipster, attired mostly in skinny jeans, beanies, and flannel and he wore his shiny blonde hair long, constantly fiddling with it. He liked to vacillate between man bun or half up half down styles and his  _ fucking _ hair ties seemed to infiltrate every single place their group hung out. Levi took to wearing several on his arm simply because it didn't seem like Eld was capable of keeping track of an elastic for more than twenty minutes. 

Ollie had an interesting style that Levi could only define as preppy/grunge. He wore khakis and button ups but seemed to look like he slept in his clothing the night before for absolutely no apparent reason. He also always wore something around his neck whether he was wearing a collared shirt or not. Levi had seen his collection of bow ties, scarves, and cravats once and had to admit it was impressive, even if they never quite matched what he was wearing. 

Eld gave Petra a tentative smile when she greeted them, his gaze lingering just a little too long on her shiny copper hair when she hugged him. He had liked her since middle school, but never said anything, using Levi's supposed prior "claim" on her as an excuse. Unfortunately for him, Levi dispelled that notion in seventh grade when he came out to them as gay (which Petra already knew), but Eld still never made his move, saying he didn't want to ruin their group dynamic. In Levi's opinion the guy was just scared shitless but if he didn't feel like going for it, that was his business. 

He slammed his locker shut as the group turned to head down the hall to their shared homeroom when a carelessly slung bag smacked Petra in the shoulder and sent her sprawling against Eld, nearly tipping them both over. Levi frowned at the culprits, a group of jocks who were laughing and joking so loudly they didn't even seem to notice. His face twisted into a sneer and he stepped out into the middle of the hallway, raising his voice. 

"Hey! You owe my friend an apology." 

The group of jocks paused and turned as one, disbelief painting their faces. Levi swallowed nervously as they strolled back to him. They were obviously on the basketball team because as they got closer, standing shoulder to shoulder as they were, they looked like fucking giants. Levi was just over five nine, but these guys towered over him, none of them shorter than six feet tall and several quite a bit taller than that. 

Levi recognized the guy in the center, the bag swinging culprit, by his chocolate brown hair and bright turquoise eyes. They had been in homeroom together both freshman and sophomore year. Everyday of those two years, without fail, he was running his mouth about some sports related bullshit. Levi wasn't surprised that the guy didn't show even a flicker of recognition when they stood face to face. He'd sat in the back of the room and kept to himself- a loudmouth, airhead jock would have absolutely no use for him. To be fair he didn't know the guy's name either. These assholes were all the same to him. 

Levi took stock of the situation as they faced off, knowing without looking that Eld, Ollie, and Gunn were also sizing them up in case things got physical. Levi wasn't too worried about the guy in the center. He was tall and athletic but skinny and looked like he would be blown over in a stiff wind. The guy immediately to his right with brownish blonde hair didn't worry him too much either, he was slightly broader, but not impressively so. It was the massive blonde behind them that gave him pause. The fucker looked at least six foot seven and was flanked by two guys who looked like they could wrestle a full grown grizzly bear and actually have a shot at winning. 

He didn't back down though. Levi might be shorter but he was no shrinking violet. Under his loose fitting jacket and anarchy t-shirt his body rippled with well developed muscles that he got from years of lifting weights with uncle Kenny and doing military grade PT workouts. As an openly gay, male, art student who wore makeup Levi had found himself on the receiving end of more than one beating. As his body matured he was able to shut his bullies up real fast. His gaze snapped back to the guy in the center who spoke to him in a tone of disbelief. 

"Are you talking to me, freak?"

Levi sucked his teeth and squeezed his fist, feeling his muscle flex. 

"Yeah, I'm talking to you, asshole. You hit my friend with your bag and you owe her an apology."

The guy with the brownish blonde hair tried to step forward but the guy with turquoise eyes shouldered him back. He satisfied himself with trash talking.

"Hey I know you! You're that fucking art fairy from my history class. Watch your mouth when you talk to a  _ real _ man, freak. You gonna let him talk to you like that, Eren?"

If Levi hadn't been watching the kid with the turquoise eyes... _ Eren _ ...he wouldn't have seen him wince slightly when his friend used the homophobic slur.  _ Interesting _ . Levi wasn't bothered, he had been called worse, but Eren didn't seem too happy about it. Levi set his teeth in a silent snarl.

"A  _ real _ man would watch where he's slinging his fucking backpack and apologise to the person he hit."

Eren shook his head as rage slowly clouded his eyes. 

"I might have let you off if you backed down, but you just keep running your mouth." 

He saw the trajectory of the punch before Eren threw it and although he was faster than Levi expected, he wasn't fast enough. Levi ducked low and plowed into the taller boy, knowing the only way to even things out would be to take away his height advantage. They sprawled, grappling across the floor. Levi straddled Eren's chest and was pulling back his fist to punch him in the face when the sound of adult shouting filled the hall and he was hauled back bodily from the prone man. Eren was also pulled to his feet and the two of them struggled against the people pulling them apart, eager to tear each other to pieces. 

Principal Cochran's bell-toned voice cut through the pandemonium of shouting students until everyone froze. She was shorter than Levi and nearly as wide as she was tall, her long gray braids swinging imperiously down to the middle of her back. She commanded respect just by entering a room and didn't ordinarily need to raise her voice so when she did the effect was electric. 

"That's  _ enough _ ! Everybody settle down."

She turned to the crowd and they started melting away like magic before she even spoke. 

" _ All _ of you have classes to get to so if you are  _ still _ here by the time I have finished my sentence I will assume you wish to  _ join _ Mr. Yeager and Mr. Ackerman in detention."

By Levi's calculation it took about seven seconds until they were alone in the hallway. The principal looked back and forth between them and raised her hand when they both started speaking at once, pinning then with a forbidding glare. 

"I do  _ not _ care who started it or why. I have had the  _ worst _ week in my fifteen years as a principal. I had to suspend my Vice Principal pending an investigation of serious accusations and have had to pay to have the entire first floor of this building repainted. I do  _ not _ need my star basketball player and my Presidential Art Prize winner throwing punches in front of my office. You both have detention starting Monday, which means  _ no _ basketball for you and  _ no _ Studio time for you for the  _ week _ . Have I made myself  _ clear _ ?"

Eren looked like he was choking on his tongue but he mumbled "yes, ma'am" as did Levi. Before she could turn away he spoke up.

"Ms. Cochran? Does that mean I'm benched from the games?"

The woman took a deep breath and peered up at him with her amber colored eyes narrowed.

"No. Just from practice. You need to cool your heels, hotshot. And Mr. Ackerman, is there  _ any _ way I can get you to take out those piercings?"

Levi had to suppress a smile. Paradis high school had an extremely liberal dress code but he was well aware he hung out on the fringe. It was something she mentioned to him frequently, but it really was beyond her power to change. Still, he had to admire her tenacity.

"No ma'am."

Her lips twitched slightly and she turned around, clearly dismissing them. 

"You both get to class now and report to Mr. Mueller Monday afternoon." 

Levi turned, expecting an additional interaction with his new nemesis, but Eren had already stalked off in the opposite direction. He shrugged and headed to class determined not to waste another minute of his life before Monday afternoon thinking about some bougie, unoriginal, shit-for-brains jock. 

Even if pretty turquoise eyes made his heart beat just a little bit faster. 


	4. Detention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren gets very frustrated.

Eren chewed on his lip in frustration as he stormed into detention, fit to be tied. He had stewed over his fate for the entire weekend, taking it out on the opposing team on Sunday afternoon. He had fouled out so many times he practically handed the other team twenty points. If his gameplay hadn't been so devastating, the Titans might actually have lost. But it wasn't all due to the impotent frustration he felt that he would be missing basketball practice.

Eren was pissed.

Pissed that a  _ stupid _ scandal was upstaging his perfect basketball season, pissed that some freaky goth kid had  _ humiliated _ him and then dodged his punch, pissed that the altercation had outted his best friend as a homophobe, and pissed that he now had to sit with the guy for a  _ whole _ week, rotting in detention. 

He slammed into the room hoping against hope that Marylin Manson decided to blow off the punishment. He sat down by the door when he noted there was no such luck. Dracula was already seated in the last seat by the windows, looking down at his desk as his hand glided over a page in an open sketchpad. It irritated Eren even more when the guy didn't even look up to acknowledge the racket he was making by scraping his rickety chair across the linoleum. He was about to open his mouth to say something obnoxious when Mr. Mueller bustled into the room looking beleaguered and uncomfortable in a suit that was easily two sizes too small. 

"Alright, you are the only two on the roster right now. Ackerman, Levi, and Yeager, Eren. Oh, Yeager! I saw you in the game yesterday, son. Great attack you have there."

Eren nodded regally when Mr. Mueller looked up. He checked out of the corner of his eye to see if Levi had realized who he was dealing with yet, but the other man hadn't twitched a muscle in either of their directions. He may as well have been alone in the fucking room.  _ Asshole _ .

"Alright, so you have to be here for ninety minutes but I don't have any other instructions so you're just gonna...think about what got you here in the first place. Oh...and your phones, please."

Eren handed his over with a suffering expression on his face but Levi just held his up disinterestedly and waited for the teacher to take it from his hand. He didn't even make eye contact.  _ What is with this guy? _

Mueller collected their devices, sat down in a huff, and pulled out his iPad setting it up on the desk and plugging in a massive pair of noise cancelling headphones that he slipped over his balding head. Effectively tuned out, Eren settled back, sneaking another glance at his fellow prisoner, irritated anew that he seemed completely indifferent to the situation. He didn't want to be the first to break the silence, but after fifteen minutes, Eren was bored enough to gouge out his own eyeballs. He hadn't though to retrieve his backpack after class so he couldn't even work on homework. 

"Is it always like this? He doesn't even know we're still in the room."

Levi grunted an affirmative without looking up from whatever he was drawing. Eren snorted, half surprised that the other boy had even responded. The malevolent need irritate Levi as much as he was irritated permeated his consciousness.

" _ Figured _ you would have been in detention before."

That must have struck a nerve because the continuously gliding hand ceased its motion and Levi turned slowly to glare at him, the dead expression in his eyes actually frightening when set behind all the dramatic Satanist makeup. He stared, unblinking for a moment, until his expression shifted to a more recognizable dislike. Apparently their feelings were mutual. 

"I have  _ never _ . Petra, you know, the girl you almost  _ flattened _ , has him for study hall. She warned me it would be like this."

Eren's brow twitched but he fought to keep his expression neutral. In actuality he did kind of feel bad about that. He was so used to people getting out of his way, he really just hadn't been paying attention to who was around. He'd rationalized over the weekend that if he hadn't been called out so aggressively he probably would have apologized.

Maybe. 

"What is she, your  _ girlfriend _ or something? Your next human sacrifice?"

The dark haired man opened his mouth to reply to the insult but something flashed in his eyes that made Eren immediately uncomfortable. When he spoke, his tone was thick with sarcasm.

"Didn't your buddy already establish that I'm a prancing  _ fairy _ ? We don't tend to  _ have _ girlfriends. As far as sacrifices go, someone like Petra would hardly appease the Dark One. He requires offerings with significantly higher blood volume." 

He looked Eren up and down pointedly before turning back to his sketchpad but his hand didn't start moving again. Eren stuttered internally. Of course he remembered Jean using the slur, but in his abstraction over what that meant for him and their friendship he had completely forgotten that it also meant  _ Levi _ was gay...and apparently  _ out _ to the extent that he had no interest in denying it. 

Eren's mouth hung open for a moment and he had to make an effort to snap it shut. He had known about other gay kids of course, in both middle school and at Paradis, but had never been in such close, private, proximity with one before (he didn't count Armin, because they never really spoke). Under different circumstances he might have had some questions for Levi...but this person was the current source of his misery.

He hated the gruffness in his voice when he responded.

"Are you threatening me?"

"Maybe."

Eren snorted again but it died in his throat when Levi looked back at him again, his ice blue eyes burning into him like he was the Night King from Game of Thrones. They stared at each other for another long moment before Levi looked away again, this time resuming his drawing. Eren blinked and shivered. He was not a person who was easily intimidated but he realized with an erratic thump of his heart that he had absolutely no idea who this kid was or what he was capable of. He was reasonably certain that Levi was just joking around with all the blood sacrifice shit...Eren  _ had  _ started it...but still...

Eren might be aggressive, but he wasn't reckless. Even though he meted out his own form of justice on the court, he was a rule follower and always had been. He respected his parents and worked hard to keep his grades up. He had dreams bigger than Paradis high school and he wasn't going to let anything stupid (like fighting, drinking, or wild behavior) mess with his future. 

Levi on the other hand may as well have had "I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GIVE A FUCK" tattooed across his forehead. He had never seen anyone so fucking  _ unconcerned _ in his life. He also remembered quite poignantly the feeling of the breath leaving his lungs when Levi tackled him last week. He might look small, but the guy was obviously built under his ridiculous, costume-like clothing. Eren had actually known a moment of fear when he was about to eat his fist, sure that the blow could have broken his nose or at least knocked out one of his teeth. 

Finally he gave up staring and put his head down. Obviously conversation was pointless and too much time had passed for him to retort

…even if he could have thought of anything remotely intelligent to say...

Eren blinked lazily, unaware that he had fallen asleep until a swift kick to one of his chair legs nearly sent him sprawling. 

"Hey,  _ Sleeping Brainless, _ time to go home."

Eren sat up disoriented, feeling drool on his cheek as he willed himself awake. Only his athletic reflexes kept his phone from smacking him in the side of the face as Levi tossed it, in the process of pocketing his own. He was packed up and standing halfway between his desk and the door. Mr. Mueller was already gone. Eren rubbed his hand over his face and turned but Levi had vanished, leaving him sitting there stupidly in an empty classroom. He stood up and stashed his phone, grumbling under his breath as he headed to his locker to retrieve his bag.

If Levi wanted to be such an asshole all the time, two could play at that game. 


	5. Into The Ackermans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Levi realizes he needs to make a change.

Levi struggled into a sitting position and felt the room tilt slightly as he leaned his head back against the plush, modern headboard in Erwin's bedroom. The rest of the house looked like it had been plucked out of a documentary on beatnik artists and activists in the nineteen sixties, but his private space was sparse and clean...which was probably why Levi liked it so much.

He got up, weaving slightly as he made his way to the bathroom, already regretting falling into familiar patterns. He relieved himself and washed his hands, taking a good long look at himself in the mirror. He assumed he would look like a mess, but thanks to setting spray, the only thing aside from slightly messy hair that gave any hint that he wasn't at a hundred percent was the dull red color of his sclera, making the pale blue of his irises stand out sharply in contrast.

Still, he felt disgusting, even if he looked fine and was still decently high and physically relaxed from fucking his drug dealer into the mattress. He wanted to go home, strip his makeup off, take a shower and pretend that every time he and Erwin had meaningless sex wasn't slowly ruining him. He had met Erwin when he was a freshman and the blond beauty was the student director of the art club. He was three years older and a brilliant photographer who dreamed of travelling the world and doing Avant Garde photo spreads of timeless urban decay. 

For Levi it had been love at first sight. 

Erwin was dazzling. Tall and strong, his ash blonde hair, sky blue eyes and strong jaw giving him a boyish appearance that belied his tortured artists' brooding soul. Erwin hadn't exactly led him on. When Levi's tentative overtures were accepted he had just assumed Erwin felt the same way.

But he'd been wrong.

It's not that Erwin didn't care for him, he did, Levi could tell, but not enough to consider being in anything that resembled an exclusive relationship. Erwin was a reactionary in every sense of the word, rejecting every societal construct that came his way. He was a polyamorous pansexual who didn't believe in gender and considered himself simultaneously an entrepreneur and a Marxist. 

He mentored all of them artistically and used his connections to supply them (and most of the neighborhood) with drugs and alcohol. He was one of the people who had (unknowingly, of course) encouraged Levi to streamline his graffiti into political activism as the Reaper. He'd introduced them to another one of their group's senior members, Zoe Hanji who was a sculptor and chemistry wizard and actually grew or cooked most of what they smoked or snorted in her grandma's root cellar. 

After graduating Paradis both of them decided to go to the community college across the way and stay close to their families and the booming cottage industry they built in high school. It had taken all of their first year to save up the cash but now that they had their own place it had become the de facto hang out for all the stoners and bohemians who couldn't or didn't want to go home. 

Hanji and Erwin occasionally slept together, even though she had a steady partner, and he probably slept with a dozen other people as well. Levi tried to pretend it didn't hurt...that he couldn't be enough for Erwin. Being in love with someone for years who would never love him back the way he wanted to be loved was a death by a thousand cuts. At first he thought just sleeping with him would be enough, but he realized quickly that it only made him feel lonely and cheap. 

Still, he couldn't bear to give up on Erwin completely. He tried his best to keep his distance but it was extremely difficult, especially when he was drunk or high and Erwin was right in front of him, looking like fucking plastic molded perfection, more addictive than any drug he was peddling. That's what it had been like tonight, when he had shown up at the house, his nerves worn down from irritation, desperate to blow off some steam. 

Levi hadn't put much thought into the whole detention situation. The first day hadn't gone too badly. He had managed to mostly ignore his annoying nemesis and even got the distinct, satisfying impression that he managed to scare the douchie asshole. The kid had fallen asleep not even an hour into their sentence and Levi had found himself drawn to Eren's stupid face, which when relaxed and unaware was more objectively attractive than Levi wanted to admit. When he woke him up, it wasn't without a slightly uncomfortable twinge that he found himself thinking the little crusty smear of drool on his cheek was cute. 

It was enough to put him in a horrible mood. 

He arrived at detention this afternoon determined to ignore Eren again and work on the drawing that had been rattling around in his mind, but instead of showing up empty handed and unprepared like last time, the dipshit jock had shown up with a  _ basketball _ , which he proceeded to  _ bounce _ , once Mr. Mueller plugged himself into his telenovela, for the  _ entire _ remainder of the eighty four minutes they had detention. 

Levi tried to ignore it at first but the goddamn repetitive percussion worked its way into his brain and made it impossible for him to both think and draw. He had finally broken his silence after twenty agonizing minutes and pointed out that Eren was banned from basketball practice to which the asshole had shrugged and gestured at his drawing pad, remarking that if he was still allowed to do art, Eren was allowed to dribble. Levi hoped in vain that Mueller would get annoyed and put a stop to it, but his headphones seemed to spare him so the torture continued. By the end of the hour Levi was ready to murder the fucking peasant in cold blood. By the end of detention he was ready to kill himself. 

He had gone straight to Erwin and demanded his highest grade shit. The older boy was already on something that had his pupils blown wide and was all too eager to supply Levi with everything he needed to take the edge off.  _ Everything _ . Now it was nine p.m. and Levi felt heartsick, disgusting, and hungry enough to eat an entire twelve pack from Taco Bell.

He meandered out of the bathroom stark naked, not bothering to be quiet as he assembled his clothing and got dressed. Erwin was down for the count and would be fully capable of taking care of himself when he finally emerged from his drug and sex induced stupor. He definitely used more of his own drugs than Levi thought a dealer should, but he somehow managed to only overindulge before days when he didn't have class until noon. He was far from complaining either way, Erwin was generous with his shit on top of the fact that his prices were reasonable to begin with. 

Levi grabbed his backpack after making sure he had all of his belongings and stepped out into the dark house. He could hear Hange down the hall in her bedroom and the rhythmic thump of her bed against the wall. Apparently he wasn't the only one who got lucky tonight… though he imagined she'd feel quite a bit better about it in the morning than he did. He bit his lip as he stepped out into the street and considered calling his sister to pick him up when the cold air hit his body, deciding against it almost immediately. 

Walking in the cold would clear his mind and help him feel better, plus he wasn't far from the bus stop, which was still running at this hour, albeit infrequently. Plus, he really didn't feel like being interrogated right now. He and Mikasa used to be close - they never really had a particular falling out - they just weren't as tight as they used to be. Even though there was a six year age difference between them, she was still always interested in his life...a sort of second mother since their mom worked so much to make ends meet. 

Looks-wise people always thought they were twins, but the resemblance was only skin deep. She was not remotely artistic and though she supported him as an artist, really had no interest in his world. Neither of them had ever met their father, but they got Japanese citizenship through him and Mikasa used hers to attend college at some fancy technical school in Tokyo. She left at the start of his seventh grade year and he hadn't seen her again in person for four years. When she came back this past summer, excited to move back home after her big adventure, he barely recognized her. 

Any hint of open mindedness she had before she left was swallowed up by corporate ambition. She didn't have an issue with him being gay (his family was surprisingly cool about that) but she had this irritating way of lecturing him about his sartorial preferences and they argued bitterly over politics. She also didn't approve of how much time he spent with uncle Kenny, always muttering under her breath that he was a bad influence, which made Levi bristle defensively. 

Kenny had been like a father to him for nearly his whole life, retiring from the Military when Levi was around three years old and moving back home. He and their mom (his sister) had always been close. He lived with them for a year until he bought his own place just a few blocks away and was a constant fixture in all of their lives. He was the person who taught Levi how to ride a bike and bought him his first real sketch pad when he noticed the kid would doodle on anything he could get hands on, including couch cushions and walls. He worked security at a local bank which paid him well enough when added to his savings and veteran benefits. Maybe he drank too much, but a lot of people did and he was never violent or angry. Kenny never even raised his voice. 

There was no doubt his time in the military had scarred him. Levi would wake up to him screaming in terror some nights when he stayed over for the weekend, reliving the horrors of war. Sometimes, when he had just a little too much to drink he would sit with Levi and they would sip tea (his topped off with a generous dose of bourbon) and he would tell stories that made Levi's blood run cold about horrible things he and the other Marines in his unit had been forced to do.

It was on one of those nights that he found Kenny ready to set fire to his uniforms and medals and Levi had rescued them, asking if he could use them for his own purposes. Levi felt it gave his once staunchly Catholic, formerly military uncle a weird sort of satisfaction to know that his pierced, tattooed, gay, Satan worshiping, anarchist nephew was actively dishonoring the system he had come to hate. 

Kenny was the only adult who knew he was the Reaper, and true to form, he supported his brand of resistance against the establishment. Uncle Kenny understood him and didn't ask him stupid questions about what he was going to do with his life. Levi was an artist, it beat through his heart and oxygenated his blood. The day he could no longer create art would be the day he ceased to exist. Any future that didn't involve that, wasn't one worth living in to him. Kenny got that, his mother accepted it, Mikasa still considered it a phase. It didn't really bother him since out of the three people in his family she knew him the least but it still wasn't pleasant to listen to a huge facet of his personality being erased. 

He climbed onto the bus and scanned his MetroCard before making his way to a seat at the back. His lips twitched slightly at the way the handful of people shrank away from him as he passed them. It always amused him how people viewed him as the embodiment of the person you wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley. Sure, it helped him avoid unwanted interactions (which, if he were honest, were the majority of his interactions with people who weren't his friends) but he still found it funny since he knew he posed absolutely no threat to anyone whatsoever. Unless they posed a threat to him. To their way of life maybe, but that wasn't something they'd worry about on the bus. 

Streetlamps flashed by and glowed on the pale skin on the back of his hands where they rested on his thighs. It was a solid thirty minute bus ride from school to his neighborhood which gave him plenty of time to think now that he was no longer freezing his ass off. He really hated himself for sleeping with Erwin again. He had tried to stop in the past, but never seemed able to follow through once temptation was in front of him. 

He couldn't really pinpoint what was different about  _ now _ , but he swore to himself that tonight would be the last time. He loved Erwin, he was attracted to him, but everything about them being together made him feel  _ wrong _ . He wanted to be with someone with whom it felt  _ right _ . Even being alone without this self loathing would be a step in the right direction. He had rationalized his behavior in the past by telling himself he just wasn't attracted to a lot of people but his realization that he might be even slightly attracted to Eren had blown that shit to hell. 

He gritted his teeth as the bus pulled into his stop. He didn't  _ want _ to be attracted to Eren, but he couldn't help the way his body responded. Before the confrontation that landed them in detention, he hadn't laid eyes on the other boy in literally six months, though he had never forgotten the strange, intense shade of his eyes. Even when Eren was being the fucking embodiment of every negative aspect of a jock stereotype, he just looked so... _ pretty _ . Levi didn't know where that word came from exactly, Eren was the definition of toxically masculine, but he had a certain delicacy to his features that he found appealing.

Eren's eyelashes were thick and his nose was straight over his pouty, obnoxiously twisted lips. He also didn't even have a hint of stubble on his tanned cheeks. Levi couldn't stand body hair on himself or on people he was attracted to. Erwin and the dusting of tawny hair on his chest was the only exception. 

Levi sighed as he stepped into the cold night, welcoming the shock to his system this time. It didn't matter if he found Eren physically attractive, the second he opened his mouth Levi knew nothing would ever come of it. The guy was a genuine, grade-A asshole. The two of them were complete opposites, night and day, left and right, hot and cold. If they ever  _ did _ manage to have a non-contentious conversation, they would probably have nothing in common anyway.

The guy needed a serious amount of work and Levi just didn't think it would be worth the effort. Not that Eren was interested in him. Or even  _ gay _ for that matter, though something told Levi that he and Eren did indeed bat for same team...he wasn't entirely sure if  _ Eren _ even knew it yet. He certainly wasn't out. 

Levi shelved his useless thoughts and unlocked the house, putting his jacket and bag on the hook by the door. He wasn't really trying to sneak in, his mom had given up on curfews when he was fourteen, but he was still startled when he heard his mom's voice from the living room.

"Levi?"

He dropped his bag and knelt in the archway to untie his boots. His mom sat up and smiled, looking at him blearily as though she had fallen asleep in front of the t.v. that still flashed in the background. 

"Hey mom." 

Kuchel smiled at him and opened her arms to her son, who stood up and walked the three paces between them so he could settle down on the couch and pull her against his chest. She settled there and Levi closed his eyes soaking in her warmth. His mother was a strong woman but she always seemed delicate and frail to him, more like a willow or a reed than a steadfast oak. 

She had only been a teenager when the Japanese businessman who so kindly donated his sperm to his and his sister's existence knocked her up for the first time. She had only been apprenticed at the massage parlor then. Levi was never quite sure of the details, whether his mother was paid for the extra services she provided or not, but the man visited her whenever he was on business trips and then managed to get her pregnant again. Their liaison ended shortly after that. There had been some kind of argument and in exchange for acknowledging paternity, the man had paid her off and had the records sealed. 

His mother never spoke of it or told them any more than that, so the subject was just dropped. Kuchel was a licensed massage therapist and now, at thirty nine years old, was just trying to live her best life. Levi often wondered if she would get married one day, but she didn't really seem all that interested. He would actually put a considerable amount of money on his mother being Ace, but that wasn't exactly something he could pop into casual conversation to satisfy his curiosity. That, when combined with her own less than reputable past, could be part of the reason she was so accepting of his own eccentricities. 

She leaned back comfortably against his shoulder and traced his lower lip with the tip of her finger, stopping to tap on his lip ring. If she smelled the weed on his clothes she didn't comment. 

"You'll have to teach me how to do my makeup like this one of these days. My lipstick wears off the second I eat something. You are eating, aren't you?"

He tipped his head back and smiled at her, stroking her long black hair away from her face. It was almost strange but he felt like she hadn't aged a day since he was born. 

"I told you, mom, YouTube. Those beauty gurus know everything and actually, I haven't had dinner yet." 

She frowned at him and sat up, a furrow appearing between her pale blue eyes. 

"If Kenny can't get dinner on the table you both need to come home to eat, Levi, you're still growing…"

Levi rolled his eyes but followed his mom into the kitchen. 

"I didn't go to uncle Kenny's today, actually." 

Kuchel didn't ask for any more details, but set about removing a covered dish from the refrigerator, scooping a square of lasagna onto a plate and popping it into the microwave. For a while he used to interpret her lack of interest in his life as mildly offensive. It took him getting a little older to realize that it was just her way of giving him space. Ordinarily he didn't tell her much, she trusted him and he didn't want to worry her, but tonight he felt like talking. 

"I was with Erwin."

She turned her attention toward him as the delicious smells of melted cheese and meatless crumbles filled the kitchen. 

"How's he doing?" 

"He's good. I've been thinking about not spending so much time with him from now on, though." 

She frowned slightly as she set the plate down in front of him and turned to retrieve a glass from the cupboard, filling it to the brim with milk. The food was really too hot to chew but he took a bite anyway, his empty stomach overriding his better judgement. 

"Did you guys quarrel?"

Even if she wasn't one to pry, Levi knew his mother wasn't stupid. She knew about his feelings for Erwin and that they had a physical relationship, even if she didn't know the details. 

"No...it's just, he doesn't feel the same about me that I...that I feel about him so...I think I need to move on...a bit."

A strange look flashed in his mother's eyes, so like his own, and yet containing experiences the likes of which he would never know. She reached out to him tentatively and placed her hand over his which was sitting on the countertop next to his plate. 

"That can be really difficult to do, but you can do anything you set your mind to, Levi. It's why I've never worried about you. You've always known what's best for yourself. Trust those instincts and you won't go wrong."

Levi felt the back of his throat clog up and he looked down at his plate, scooping another forkful of lasagna into his mouth. A creeping feeling of irrational fear skittered down his spine as his mom retracted her hand. It occurred to him with a flash of unease that he knew just as little about his mother's life as she knew about his. 

"Thanks. Hey, mom, is everything okay? You're not, like, sick or something, right?"

She blinked at him for a moment and then her mood shifted and she smiled, causing the odd atmosphere around them to recede. 

"Of course not, sweetheart, everything's fine."

They chatted lightly while he finished his dinner, mostly about the Reaper incident and Vice Principal Stevens' impending trial which she was following on the news. She washed his plate and glass and set them on the rack to dry before he could insist on doing it himself. They walked out of the kitchen together and he pulled her into a tight hug before heading back to his bedroom. The feeling of her small hands gripping his waist should have reassured him, but it only made him think of her as even more fragile. 

He vowed to himself that he would be around more and take a more critical look at his mother's life. It had never occurred to him before that when he was spending all his time at Kenny's or with his friends raising hell that she was alone. He tried to tell himself that Mikasa was always around but it was poor solace. He and his mom had moved to this ground floor garden apartment after she left for Japan because they just didn't need as much space for the two of them and the difference in rent was significant. The apartment was a nice two bedroom with den (which Mikasa had made her bedroom) but since they were all a bit on top of each other she spent most of her time either at work or out getting reacquainted with her friends. 

He knew what loneliness could do to a person and it made him worry. His mother deserved better from him and it made him feel like a really shitty son. 

"I love you, mama." 

Kuchel laughed softly and released him, taking both of his cheeks in her hands. He felt like she was somehow looking at him straight through his makeup and piercings and it made him feel ridiculously overdressed and slightly silly.

"Now, you haven't called me that since you were six years old. I love you too, lemming."

Levi chuckled at the old nickname, remembering clearly the day he won a stuffed lemming in a carnival game when he was in preschool. He was so proud of his win he had carried it with him everywhere for a solid six months and insisted he and Lemmy were actually brothers. Eventually he grew out of his obsession, but the little critter still occupied a space on his shelf and it would be a bold faced lie if he said he didn't talk to it from time to time, just to check in. He gave her one last squeeze and bent down to pick up his boots and backpack. 

"I'm gonna head to bed. Thanks for the food. Goodnight."

She nodded at him and switched off the t.v. grabbing her phone off the coffee table. 

"Me too, I think. Night!"

Levi headed for his bedroom and shut the door quietly behind him, starting the process of removing his makeup on autopilot. He was mentally exhausted from today and just wanted to lay down and have a good night's sleep. Part of him wished he could just get high again and stop worrying about everything, at least for the rest of the night, but that wouldn't solve a thing and he didn't have any of the good shit anyway. He pushed his bangs back and looked at himself in the mirror once his face was clean and studied his reflection. He had gotten so in the habit of putting on makeup every morning he just did it automatically lately, not particularly questioning the impulse. Maybe it was time to scale back a bit, just until he felt like wearing it again. 

Change is good. 


	6. Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the finally talk to each other...and it doesn't work out that well.

Eren sauntered into the detention room from the front entrance, placing his phone on the desk with a quiet tap. Both Mueller and Levi were late today but they would show eventually. He was strangely optimistic about today given the unmitigated success of the previous session.

Well, maybe not  _ completely _ unmitigated.

Eren hadn't  _ really _ intended on bouncing the basketball for as long as he did, he needed to use half a tub of icy hot just to get to bed last night, but when he saw how irritated it made Levi he simply refused to back down. 

Maybe he didn't have such a great personality.

He sat down right in the middle of the desk Levi occupied and smiled cheerfully as Mr. Mueller huffed into the room. Someone really needed to check that man's blood pressure, who sweat that much in December? 

Levi was the last to arrive and Eren tried to look nonchalant, leaning back against the windowsill. He entered the room without looking and stalked up the central aisle to drop his phone on the teacher's desk. His outfit was over the top, as usual. He wore a long (probably "vintage") army green trench coat complete with aged brass buttons that swept down dramatically to his ankles. He wore black skinny jeans tucked into high laced boots that looked like they could break someone's jaw if directed properly. When he turned, the jacket flared open and Eren could see he was wearing some sort of black, cowl-like turtleneck underneath that was loosely laced like some sort of corset. 

Eren bit his lip but quickly looked away. He still thought Levi looked ridiculous...like everyday was some kind of steampunk costume party, but he had to grudgingly admit the guy had style. Feeling self conscious all of a sudden as Levi stalked forward, he fiddled with his basketball, twirling it on the tip of his finger like one of the Harlem Globetrotters, doing his best to appear casual. He could do a lot of tricks with a basketball when he could focus. 

He didn't look up again until Levi was right in front of him. He glanced to the side, straight at the center of Levi's chest and the ball wobbled, so he snatched it down. It would look more deliberate than dropping it. He met Levi's eyes tentatively and neither of them said a word. It was a strange perspective to look at the other man from since when they were both standing he towered over him. Not that Levi was particularly short... _ everyone _ was short to him. Except Mike and Reiner...they made him feel like a newborn baby. 

There was something different about Levi today and he had to study him for a moment before it clicked. No makeup. Or at least, very little, because how could anyone's eyelashes be  _ that _ thick? Without his ever present eyeliner, Levi's dusky lashes really stood out, practically brushing his pale cheeks. He also hadn't noticed before, but the other boy had a definite Asian cast to his features, not pronounced enough to be full blooded, but he was at least mixed race. He had dark circles under his eyes which looked so natural that it was obvious he usually covered them with makeup. It didn't look  _ bad _ ...it just looked  _ real _ . Eren found himself staring at Levi's naked lips, which looked soft and inviting when they weren't covered with paint. 

Unbidden, the word 'handsome' popped into Eren's mind. Why would somebody this attractive cover their natural face? 

While they stared at each other, He momentarily forgot that sitting in the center of the other boy's desk had been specifically to annoy him. Levi huffed and stepped around his legs, pulling out the chair and plopping down into it, unfazed that he was sitting on the desk. Levi started to reach for his bag, probably to pull out the ever present sketch pad, but thought the better of it, eyeing the basketball with thinly disguised disgust. 

"If I don't draw today will you not bounce the damn ball?" 

Eren thought for a moment and then nodded. He felt awkward and childish sitting on the desk especially since Levi hadn't risen to the bait. He didn't particularly want to repeat his performance from yesterday, his muscles were still aching, and this gave him a graceful 'out'. He slid surreptitiously down onto the chair in front of Levi's desk and straddled it, putting the basketball between himself and the seat back and folding his arms in front of him. They were facing each other but Levi didn't look at him. He stared past him, his pale eyes focused on the street outside the window. 

A wave of curiosity crashed over Eren as he sat watching Levi's immobile face. Who was this person? They were obviously in the same grade if he was in Jean's history class. How had Eren never noticed someone so...distinctive?

"So, you're into art?" 

Levi's gaze flashed to his face and he raised an eyebrow as though he was offended, although Eren couldn't imagine how that question was offensive. 

"Yes, I'm an  _ artist _ ."

Eren sat back mulling over the distinction, starting to get annoyed. Why couldn't this guy just have a normal conversation?

"What's with your attitude? Art, artist,  _ whatever _ ."

Levi looked at him again and steepled his fingers, pitching his voice in a sing song way as though he was talking to a child. 

"If I asked you if you were  _ into _ basketball you wouldn't take offense to that?"

Eren conceded the point. He wasn't trying to be offensive, but he could see how Levi would take that comment when he put it in context. Eren wasn't just  _ into _ basketball. He  _ was _ basketball. It was a subtle but meaningful distinction. 

"Yeah...I guess I would. Okay, so you're  _ good _ ? A good artist, I mean."

Levi shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah, I'm good."

Eren frowned. 

"How do you  _ know _ you're good? Do artists have like...tournaments or something?" 

Levi's lips twitched and a muscle jumped in his jaw. Eren couldn't tell if he was annoyed or amused. Maybe both? And why did he care…

"Yeah,  _ or something _ . Why do you even care? You obviously know nothing about art."

Eren pressed his lips together not liking the way Levi was dismissing him. 

"I know art! There's like, Van Gogh and Picasso and, and the Sistine Chapel."

Levi crossed his arms, definitely annoyed now.

"Just because I  _ know _ who Michael Jordan is doesn't mean I  _ know _ basketball." 

They fell silent, staring at each other again. He had a point of course. Obviously they weren't going to get anywhere with this conversation. Why on earth he was pursuing this was a mystery. He rationalized to himself that it was to stave off boredom or even that he was purposely trying to be an annoyance...but neither of those were completely true…

"So, you're not wearing makeup today."

"Neither are you."

Eren looked at him, raising an eyebrow sarcastically and Levi bit his lip.  _ Good. At least he recognizes he's being childish.  _

"Why do you dress like that, anyway? You don't even hang out with the other Goth kids." 

Levi looked like he was going to respond sarcastically but instead he gave a long suffering sigh and dropped his arms into his lap. 

"I don't dress for other people. I just wear clothes I like. Same with the makeup. I wear it when I feel like it. Why do you dress the way you do?"

Eren shrugged.

"It's comfortable?"

"It's  _ boring _ ."

"It's normal."

"What's so great about being normal?"

Eren had no response for that. How do you explain to someone the benefits of being normal? You can't teach a cat to ice skate. 

"So nothing influences your style?"

Levi pressed his lips together thoughtfully and then shrugged.

"The only reason to do anything is if you want to."

Eren was already shaking his head.

"That's bullshit. You can't just do whatever you want! People have things they  _ have _ to do. Like go to school. You're telling me you  _ want _ to be in detention right now?"

"I have my reasons for being here, same as you. I don't  _ want _ detention but that doesn't mean I want to get suspended either. You do what you have to do, its not like Petra  _ wanted _ to get slammed into a locker."

Eren sat back, bristling. He had almost forgotten that the whole reason why they were here was that he wasn't watching where he was walking. Levi had started it of course, by calling him out and then not backing down, but if he hadn't hit the girl  _ by accident  _ he'd be at basketball practice right now. The urge to apologize bubbled up into his throat but he swallowed it down, too stubborn to give Levi the satisfaction of winning. It wouldn't make any difference anyway, the girl wasn't even here. 

"Are you always this impossible to talk to?"

" _ Yes _ ."

Levi said the one word so decisively that it seemed to float in the air between them. Eren blinked and then slumped over laughing hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. This whole situation was just so ridiculous he felt like he was in a parallel universe. What were they even fighting about? It felt good to laugh, releasing some of the strumming tension that always seemed to flare antagonistically when he and Levi were squaring off. 

He noticed with a thrum of shock that the other boy was chuckling too. Levi ran his hand back through his hair and pinched the bridge of his nose, sniffing abruptly in a way that reminded Eren of a movie he had seen once where people snorted coke. He wondered idly if Levi used drugs and decided it was definitely possible. He sorta looked like the type. He didn't ask though, none of the questions he had asked would be classified as his business, but asking someone if they did drugs seemed like crossing a line even to him. 

Eren's eyes dropped to the front of Levi's coat, to the very realistic looking medals and patches that were sewn onto the front, including a name tag printed with the name 'Ackerman'. Levi noticed where he was looking and answered the unasked question. 

"My uncle was a Marine."

Eren frowned.

"I'm sorry."

Levi cocked his head to the side.

"Why? He's not dead or anything. He retired. But he didn't want his stuff anymore."

"He doesn't mind that you...cut it up and shit?"

Levi shrugged.

"He was gonna burn it, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't care."

Eren bit his lip, figuring he would pursue this line of conversation. It seemed innocent enough. 

"Is your dad also in the military?"

An unfathomable look flashed in Levi's eyes for a moment. He looked like he was going to say something else and then appeared to change his mind, saying simply,

"I don't have a dad."

Eren blinked. Before he could say anything Levi kept talking, maybe to mask his discomfort with a subject that was all of a sudden a minefield. 

"What about you? Do you, like, play basketball with your dad?"

_ Yep. Definitely a minefield. _

"Actually no. I mean not really. My dad was paralyzed in a car accident before I was born. So we do play basketball...but he plays from a wheelchair."

That seemed to give Levi pause. 

"Oh."

They fell silent again, but it wasn't antagonistic this time. Mueller coughed at the front of the room and Eren looked around, shocked when he glanced at the wall clock that so much time had passed. He turned back and fiddled with his basketball, tossing it to himself and then spinning it on the end of his finger again. He looked up into Levi's pale eyes surprised to see a spark of admiration there. He couldn't help needling him a bit.

"You like that?"

"It's...it's alright, I guess."

Eren suppressed a smile and shrugged. He shouldn't give two shits about whether or not this creepy, irritating stranger thought a stupid trick was cool but for some reason it flooded him with warmth. 

"It's pretty easy. Give me your hand."

"What?"

"Just, give me your hand."

Levi extended his right hand slowly as though afraid he was going to get stabbed and Eren gripped it casually, arranging it into a loose fist with his index finger pointing upward. Despite all his layers and the heated classroom, Levi's skin felt cold to the touch. Eren gave the basketball another spin and then lowered it slowly until he could transfer the sphere onto Levi's finger. 

The backs of their hands brushed and their eyes met and for a split second this whole interaction felt a lot like flirting. Levi focused back on the ball. He actually managed to balance it for a few seconds before it began to wobble. Eren snatched it back before it could drop. 

"See? Easy."

Levi stared back and forth between Eren and his finger. His ice blue eyes were wide with delight and a genuine, guileless smile played around the corners of his lips. His face transformed and for a moment he looked like a completely different person. He caught Eren staring and they both looked down. 

"I was never interested in sports. I just wanted to draw."

Eren nodded. 

"Can I see what you were drawing?"

Levi thought about it for a moment and then pulled his sketchpad out of his backpack and laid it down between then, flipping it around so Eren could see it from the proper perspective. 

"I'm a painter...but all my paintings start out as sketches. Most of the time I sketch something first and then paint it later on canvas. It's like… taking notes."

Eren had expected doodles or cartoons but when he flipped back the cover of the pad his mouth fell open. When Levi had said he was  _ good _ that was clearly the understatement of the year. It started out as just a series of objects, an apple on a plate, a door post, a sweating water bottle, but each drawing was executed with such excruciating detail, if they hadn't been in grayscale, Eren would have thought he was looking at a photo album. Some of the sketches were of people. Most of them were strange to him but others he recognized, like the girl Petra, or the Math teacher Mr. Ellison. 

Eren stopped at one page in particular which had just one drawing in the center, a bouquet of roses in peak bloom held together by a bow around the stems. The flowers looked wet and even though there was no color in the image, Eren got the distinct impression that it was blood that dripped down the stems and stained the center of the bow. He stretched his finger out to run it along the edge of one of the roses and flinched when Levi caught his wrist in a surprisingly strong grasp. 

" _ Don't _ touch. You could smudge it."

Eren nodded mutely and felt color in his cheeks. 

"Sorry."

He folded his hands in his lap. 

"What were you working on yesterday?"

Levi picked up the book and flipped through it quickly, laying it down again when he found the page he wanted, sliding it across the desk. Eren's eyes widened again and he felt his pulse beating in the burning tips of his ears. A man lay stretched out on his stomach with a light sheet bunched underneath him. A full side view of his body was visible, from his muscular calf and thigh to his rounded buttocks. The rippling curve of his back muscles flowed down into his flexed bicep. His arm was folded around under his face, which was gazing sleepily at the viewer. His features were classically handsome, nearly perfect, even though only one side of his face could be seen. 

There was something so intimate and erotic about the image it made Eren's stomach drop. He got the distinct feeling this man was not some figment of Levi's imagination and he didn't know why he found that so unsettling. He had to clear his throat before he spoke. Levi didn't seem to notice. 

"Your uhm, your boyfriend?"

The response was so quiet Eren almost didn't catch it.

"No."

Both of them flinched when Mr. Mueller scraped his chair back. Levi closed the pad and stowed it away as the teacher walked up to them and placed their phones on the desk between them, eyeing them with disinterest.

"See you tomorrow, boys."

Eren mumbled something and Levi nodded. He wondered if the other boy was as distracted as he was. Levi was standing before Eren got his bearings and was nearly out the door when he stopped and turned slowly to look at him from the corner of his eye. 

"See ya."

Eren watched him go, answering just a moment too late.

"See ya."


	7. Anticipation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Levi just needs a little TLC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies. This chapter (and most of this story, tbh) contains a running subplot of alcohol/substance abuse, mental health challenges, depression, anxiety, and vandalism and almost all of it is perpetrated or experienced by individuals below the age of consent(ish). Please be warned in case any of these themes is a trigger for you.  
> If you struggle with alcoholism, substance abuse, or mental health issues, you are not alone. I see you.  
> ♡DiLo

Thursday was uneventful.

Eren was a little trepidatious at the thought of seeing Levi again. Not that they were  _ friends _ or anything, they still very obviously annoyed the hell out of each other, but the conversations the day before had felt strangely intimate. It left Eren wondering what the mood between them would be today. Unfortunately he would never know. A scuffle in the cafeteria during fourth period lunch meant they were no longer the only kids in detention. 

The new rowdy bunch were clearly freshman and seemed determined to make their displeasure known, complaining loudly and roughhousing. Levi was already in the room sitting in his usual spot, sketchbook open. The kids were giving Levi a wide berth and one look at his face explained why. He wasn't wearing makeup again today but the dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced as though he hadn't slept since Eren saw him last, which given the moody grumpiness of his facial expression was entirely possible. As Eren dropped his phone into the bin on the desk he noticed a crumpled up ball of paper fly out of the knot of warring first years and smack Levi directly in the side of the face. 

The room hushed as he slowly lifted his head and turned a cold glare on the perpetrators. He didn't do anything particularly threatening but his whole demeanor screamed that he was dangerous. The closest of the freshman raised his hands in a defensive gesture and stuttered out an apology.

Apparently satisfied, Levi turned back to his sketchpad, neither him nor the others appearing to notice or care that Eren entered the room. With just the slightest hitch in his step he made his way to the seat he had occupied the day before.

Why did it feel so natural to sit down next to Levi when they weren't even friends? He sat sideways today, not wanting to turn his back fully on the room. He drummed his fingers on Levi's desk but the other boy didn't look up.

"Hey."

Levi's pencil scraped against the page for a few seconds before he answered. He was using one of those weird flat pencils that Eren saw in the art room from time to time. He was working on a different sketch than the other day, shading in a section of what looked like the side of a person's face. 

"Hey."

"You look kind of tired today."

"What's it to  _ you _ ?"

Eren was taken aback. Levi had bitten out the words with an unwarranted vehemence that didn't seem to fit the situation at all. He realized that himself and sighed, looking up at Eren with eyes that were dull with exhaustion, his tone turning the statement into an apology.

"I haven't slept much this week."

Eren nodded, trying to imagine what that must feel like but couldn't. He slept like the dead. Probably because he exhausted himself playing basketball every day. 

"Oh. Why don't you sleep now? I'll uh...I'll watch your stuff."

Levi looked like he wanted to argue but it genuinely seemed like he might keel over any minute. Eren wondered again if he was on drugs because even for someone  _ that _ tired he just didn't look right. He mumbled something that sounded like  _ whatever _ and shoved his drawing supplies into the bag on his lap, pulled his hood up and layed down on his folded arms. His breathing evened out within moments. 

He couldn't see Levi's face but stared at him for a moment, wondering what sequence of events had led to him being this way at three thirty on a Thursday afternoon. The sleek black strands of his fringe stuck out from under his hoodie and Eren had the absurd urge to reach his hand down and brush them aside just to see if they felt as silky as they looked. He kept the impulse at bay and turned to the front of the room. 

The freshman were whispering now and one was pushed forward towards him, a jittery sacrifice. 

"Uh, hey, are you Eren Yeager?"

He raised an eyebrow. 

"Yeah."

Two of the guys bumped shoulders behind the speaker and noticeably brightened. 

"I saw you on the court, man! That play at the end of the third quarter against Sina high school was  _ off the hook _ , man."

Eren grinned jauntily and chatted with the guys to pass the time. He enjoyed the hero worship but he couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed that the person he had been expecting to talk to was currently sleeping silently in the back of the room. Ninety minutes passed in a flash and Levi had barely stirred. He grabbed Levi's phone from the box and Mr. Mueller just nodded, accepting at this point that they were friends who could be trusted with the other persons' things.

Adults could be so dense sometimes. 

He didn't wake him up until they were alone in the classroom. He leaned down and spoke softly, not wanting to startle the sleeping boy.

"Levi."

When he didn't respond Eren lay his hand gently on Levi's arm and felt his heart thump. He was wearing a black long coat today over the hoodie and Eren could still feel his muscle definition through all the layers. He squeezed slightly, telling himself he just wanted to wake the other man up…

" _ Levi _ , it's time to get up."

He stirred slightly this time, moaning sleepily into the crook of his arm. His speech was a jumbled murmur.

"Not yet, baby...just another minute..."

Eren's heart pounded and he had to remind himself how to breathe. With a moment of startling clarity Eren imagined Levi in bed with the naked man from the sketch, sprawled out next to him, sleepy and sated. He knew Levi was still asleep and there was  _ no way _ he was aware that Eren was touching him. The nature of his response filled his mind with a million questions and the staggering realization that there was no way Levi was a virgin. He had said the man from the sketch wasn't his boyfriend...but that didn't mean he didn't have one. 

He had to remind himself that he didn't care either way...

The sleepy mumbling and the thought of Levi having sex caused Eren's blood to embarrassingly flow south.  _ I must really be desperate _ . Come to think of it, because of detention he hadn't hooked up with Armin since last week. He had been too keyed up after the last game to hang around the locker room so he had gone home straight away.  _ I must just be inordinately sexually frustrated...  _

No way he would want to hook up with Levi. 

Eren squeezed his arm harder and shook him slightly this time, raising his voice. He didn't like the direction his thoughts had taken. 

"Hey, Levi, wake up."

The man finally lifted his head and blinked at Eren blearily. 

"What time is it?"

Eren frowned, wondering why that was relevant. He checked his phone.

"Nearly five?"

Levi sat up as though he'd been kicked, his eyes flying wide.

" _ Shit _ . "

He stood up abruptly and nearly staggered. Eren stood up too, grabbing his bag from the floor. 

"Hey easy there. If you're gonna be late for something, I'll give you a ride."

The words were out of his mouth before he realized he was speaking. Levi stopped and took a deep breath, scrubbing his hands over his face.

"Why? Why would you do that?"

Eren shrugged, his lips twitching into a smile. He couldn't tell him the truth, that he was instinctively grasping at anything that would give them more time together, so he settled on the half truth.

"The only reason to do anything is because you want to."

Levi opened his mouth to respond but shut it with a snap when he recognized his own words. His voice sounded dull and exhausted. 

"I just need to get home."

Eren nodded and let Levi lead the way out of the classroom and down the mostly empty hall to the staircase. They left the building from one of the side entrances that led out to the parking lot. The sun was already setting when they stepped onto the pavement and Levi shivered. Eren glanced at him in all his layers, with his hood still over his head and suppressed a smile. He always ran hot so he couldn't really relate to people like his mom (and apparently Levi) who were always cold. 

He beeped his car open to show Levi which of the four cars left was his and they slid in silently. Eren looked at the other boy expectantly as he pulled smoothly out of the parking lot. 

"I live in Mitras."

Eren nodded mutely. Paradis high school was in Trost and fed from five different neighborhoods, Shiganshina, where Eren lived, Karanes, Stohess, Ehrmich, and Mitras. Levi's neighborhood was on the edge of the district closest to the city, but it still wasn't far. Traffic was also fairly light. 

"We'll be there in fifteen. Is that okay?"

Levi nodded and mumbled his address. Eren wasn't too familiar with the area but it was near a movie theater he took the twins to sometimes (it was one of the only ones in the area that didn't have assigned seating) so he thought he could find it. 

They settled into the drive and Levi seemed to relax as the car heated up. 

"Nice ride."

Eren grinned but didn't take his eyes off the road. 

"Thanks. It was a birthday present." 

Levi snorted softly under his breath. He didn't say what he was thinking but it was obviously along the lines of " _ of course it was." _

He was slightly offended but instead of retorting, he found that he wanted to justify his privilege. 

"I drive my siblings to school."

Levi raised an eyebrow at that.

"Plural?"

"Zeke and Faye. They go to Shiganshina Middle school." 

"But you don't pick them up?"

"Nah, I have basketball so they usually go with friends or to clubs and stuff and my mom picks them up after work."

Levi nodded.

"I have a sister."

Eren smirked and Levi turned to him with a puzzled expression.

"What?"

"Nothing I was just wondering if she was also...you know…"

Eren took one hand off the wheel and gestured at Levi's general appearance since he lacked the vocabulary to express what he was really asking. Levi seemed to get it. 

"We're not  _ The Addams Family _ if that's what you're asking."

Eren snickered. 

"Sorry."

Levi snorted softly. 

"Mikasa hates how I dress. She lived in Japan for college and now she's all  _ corporate _ ."

He said the last word like it was an insult and given the amount of anarchy and anti establishment swag he sported that's probably exactly how he meant it. Eren decided to leave it, figuring he was probably more sympathetic to the mysterious Mikasa's views than to Levi's. 

"Do you guys have family in Japan or something?"

Levi didn't answer right away and it made Eren wonder if he'd overstepped. 

"Maybe. Probably. I honestly don't know. Our dad's Japanese but we've never met him. We could have family all over the  _ fucking _ country and not know it. All over  _ this _ country, too."

Eren nodded feeling awkward again. He'd been called a hothead most of his life but he'd never met anyone with a more corrosive attitude than the person sitting next to him. 

"Oh...kay…"

Levi shrugged and turned an unfathomable smile on Eren that made his heart skip a bit. He opened his eyes wide and exuded insanity.

"I'm like the mystery Airhead, chalky, crusty and impossible to define even after you bite me."

"Do you get bitten often?"

"Less often than I'd like."

Charged silence filled the car and Eren had absolutely no idea how to break it. Was Levi hitting on him? It wouldn't be out of character for him to be deliberately unsettling...plus, there's no way he could know Eren liked guys...right?

"Make a left here."

Eren pulled up in front of a subdivision of garden apartments and slowed the car to a crawl. It was a low income area but from what he could tell in the waning light the lawns and hedges were tidy enough. It fit somehow that Levi lived here. 

"Uhm, what's the number again?"

"It's fine, I can walk from here."

Eren pulled over and Levi hopped out of the car pausing before slamming the door shut. 

"Thanks for the ride. See ya tomorrow."

"No problem."

He shut the door and jogged forward in a billow of material, fading into the twilight. A moment later he appeared in front of the first doorway of the second block in the courtyard and let himself into the apartment. Eren waited until he was gone from sight, committing the location to memory.

Not that he thought he'd ever be coming back here...it was just another piece of the fascinating puzzle that made up Levi, and until Eren had him all put together, he didn't think he'd be able to let his curiosity rest. 

° ☆ °

Levi shut the apartment door behind him, reveling in the blast of hot air that engulfed him. Petra always teased him for being cold blooded and she wasn't wrong. His body never seemed to be able to retain any heat at all and he hated being cold, even going as far as wearing a jacket or hoodie well into summer, and this winter was no exception. Getting a lift in Eren's fancy SUV had been an unexpected boon. As much as he despised that kind of privilege, the heated leather seats had been fucking heaven.

_ Nice to be a rich boy _ .

It also meant he wasn't actually late for dinner; the bus would have taken considerably longer. He would think about his conversation with Eren later and the energy that seemed to sizzle between them whenever they were alone, but right now all he could think of, all he had been able to think of all week, was what his mother wanted to tell them. He waved to her as he passed through on the way to his room, stopping only to untie his boots and wash his hands in the bathroom. He dropped his bag and changed into sweatpants and a thick black sweater with patches on the shoulders before heading back into the kitchen to help set the table. 

He glanced at himself in the hallway mirror and froze for a moment taking in his appearance. He felt better having slept through detention but he still looked like death. Between being stressed out at school, on edge about things at home and avoiding Erwin, he had barely slept in days. Usually he would smoke a bowl or pop some pills to get some sleep but that was the pitfall of being romantically involved with your drug dealer: avoiding him meant avoiding his products. He could easily have nipped some of Kenny's booze which would have put him out, but he hated how getting drunk made him feel and no amount of sleep was worth the hangover. 

He had been snorting some leftover Adderall when he got to school in the mornings but clearly, given how quickly he passed out this afternoon, it wasn't doing its job. Hopefully wherever the hammer fell tonight he would at least be able to get some sleep. He made his way into the kitchen and was hit with a wave of exhaustion when the delicious smells from the stove rolled over him. His mom immediately pushed him down into a chair at their tiny dinner table and refused to let him help. Uncle Kenny arrived a few minutes later, kissing his mom on the cheek and playfully messing up his hair. The older man gave him a look of disbelief when he didn't complain, but he was just too tired to care. 

Mikasa was the last to arrive, looking all prim and full of shit from her sensible heels to her high collared, ruffled top. His mom's creamy chicken casserole revived him slightly but he could barely taste it through the anxiety that was eating him alive. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Mom, can you just tell us what this is all about please? I'm freaking out here."

Kuchel blinked at him and then looked at Mikasa. 

"Actually, sweetheart, I think that's up to Mikasa."

"What? Why?"

Mikasa pressed her lips together and then looked between them. 

"I asked mom to make sure you were at dinner because I wasn't sure you would come if I asked."

Levi blinked, feeling annoyed that he had basically worried himself to exhaustion about his mom  _ for three fucking days _ over nothing, but he couldn't blame Mikasa's reasoning. She didn't know he independently decided to be home more. Either way his patience was absolutely extinct.

"Well fucking spit it out already!"

Kenny reached over and flicked his ear.

"Language in front of your mother, kid."

"Sorry."

The three of them looked expectantly at Mikasa who shifted uncomfortably before fixing her gaze on the digital stove display behind Kuchel's head. 

"Okay...so I don't know how you guys are gonna take this, so all I ask is that you hear me out. Japan is a small country, especially the corporate world...and...it was actually pure coincidence...but...I've met our family."

Levi flinched when his mother's fork clattered against her plate. She didn't even seem to notice that gravy splashed all over her shirt. He felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"Our father's name is Matsuoka Haru and I happened to be interning at the same company with his son...our half brother Taishiro. He invited me and some of the other interns home for dinner one night and I sort of put everything together. We also have a half sister named Chieko." 

Mikasa turned to Kuchel and spoke softly. 

"I've been in touch with him for the last year. He...he's not  _ bad _ , mom...he wants to be in our lives-"

"Why?"

Their mother's eyes crackled with blue fire as she snapped out of her stupor.

"Sixteen years. It's been  _ sixteen years _ without a  _ word _ . He wants to be part of our lives  _ now _ ? He wants to be a father to you  _ now _ ?" 

Mikasa sat back, stunned by her vehemence. Levi was surprised as well. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had seen his mother lose her temper. 

"He is our father…"

"He is  _ not _ . I forbid it, Mikasa! He had  _ no right  _ to pursue any kind of relationship with you without my knowledge." 

"Ugh! He said you would act like this-"

"He said? He has no right to even  _ speak my name _ , let alone predict my actions. He lost that when he abandoned us." 

Mikasa was on her feet, her hands fisted tightly at her sides. 

"It was complicated! You don't understand. He wants to make things right-" 

"Make it right? Impossible!"

"You're just being stubborn, mom."

"That stubbornness raised two children alone for eighteen years, pardon me if I don't apologize.  _ Excuse _ me."

Kuchel threw down her napkin and turned on her heel, stalking out of the kitchen. Levi was still and silent, trying to soak in everything he had just heard. Kenny looked similarly baffled, but he had not lost his ability to speak. 

"You should apologize to your mother, Mikasa. You don't know what she's been through." 

Mikasa stamped her foot, turning on their uncle. 

"Of course you would take her side! You  _ always _ hated father. He remembers you, you know!"

Levi widened his eyes at this revelation. Kenny had never said a single word about knowing their father. 

"You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand, Mikasa."

She turned away, dismissing him, and pinned Levi with her brown eyes. It occurred to him somewhere in the corner of his mind that she probably had  _ his _ ...Matsuoka Haru's...eyes. 

"It has nothing to do with you. You're not our father, no matter how much you pretend to be. What do you say, Levi? Do you want to get to know our dad?"

Levi looked away from her into Kenny's eyes and he felt a knot form in his chest. He had told Eren just this week that he didn't have a father, but that wasn't exactly true. Kenny had been there from nearly his earliest memories. At every Christmas, every birthday, every art show, picking him up from school when their mother had to work late and Mikasa went off with her friends. He was always there, chipping in where he could and just being present. 

"I already have a dad."

He spoke quietly but the effect of those five simple words was electric. Kenny's eyes sparkled with emotion and Mikasa huffed in frustration. Levi looked at his sister.

"I don't know what you want me to say. This guy and his kids...who are they to me? They don't know anything about me. Where was he when mom and I had to move because we couldn't afford the apartment in Stohess? That guy could have made it right any time, Mikasa, he's playing you for a fool. We don't need him. And you and I both know finding the Matsuoka's was no coincidence. You planned on finding them the  _ second _ you stepped foot in Tokyo. We've  _ never _ been enough for you."

As he said it, he knew it was true, and so did his sister. Mikasa turned even paler than her alabaster-toned skin and she backed up, knocking over her chair in her haste to flee the room, slamming her door hard enough to rattle the windows in their casements. Levi looked resolutely at the table full of dishes. His mind was swimming with everything he had learned tonight and he was crashing so hard from both anxiety and drugs he was shocked he was still conscious. He shook his head when Kenny pulled a dish out of his hands. He didn't remember standing up. 

"You look like hell, kid. I'll clean this up. Go take care of your mother."

Levi nodded feebly. His legs felt like rubber as they carried him to the back of the house. He knocked softly before letting himself into his mom's room. She was sprawled across the bed in her pajamas and robe sobbing inconsolably into a pillow. Without even asking he slipped under the blanket and maneuvered her against his chest, stroking her hair and her back as she soaked his sweater with tears. He thought he might be crying too, but his face was too numb to feel it.

"It's okay, mama, It's okay. We don't need him. I'm not gonna see him. It's always been us. Me, you, uncle Kenny, Mikasa...she'll come around...that's our family. We never needed anyone else and we don't now. It's okay, mama, I'm here..." 

He held her and she held him and the warmth from her blanket crept over him until the world faded to black. Levi could almost feel the moment his blood pressure dropped and he crashed out. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had a feeling drugs would kill him one day...it nagged at him in his last moments of consciousness, snuffed out too easily in his desire to run from the overwhelming stress of his everyday life.

He could still hear his mother's heartbroken sobs as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

  
  



	8. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eld takes things a bit too far.

Most people think the greatest thing about playing basketball is making the shot. The satisfaction of the  _ swish; _ nothing but net. For Eren it was about control. Control on the court, control over his body, control over his life. Basketball would give him everything he wanted out of life. All he had to do was practice, practice, practice. 

He didn't even realize how exhausting it all was, until he landed in detention and was forced to take a break. Sure, he was still waking up at five a.m. to get in his free throws, but not practicing with the team everyday was a rest for both his body and his mind that he didn't know he needed. He could have supplemented his training with pick up games or even called Jean to play one on one, but the nights were dark and cold and though it frightened him to admit it, he didn't  _ really _ want to. 

Not that he didn't love basketball or his friends, but he was distracted, and that distraction had a name that always seemed to be on the tip of his tongue lately, even if he never spoke it aloud: Levi. 

Levi was annoying, frustrating, and impossible to understand. He had a bad attitude, made ridiculous, dramatic fashion choices and had absolutely no sense of his place in society's hierarchy. Most interesting of all, he seemed to know exactly who he was and didn't seek anyone's approval. Eren had never met anyone like him. He was fascinating, and whether it was the enigma he represented or his magnetic sensuality that drew Eren to him, he just couldn't seem to get him off his mind. 

He knew Levi considered him a spoiled, bougie, asshole and rather than making him angry, like it had the first time they spoke to each other, now it just made him self conscious. The day he had spun the basketball on Levi's finger and seen his usually sullen face break into such a genuine smile had done something to him. 

He wanted to see him smile again. 

He wanted Levi to come to one of his basketball games and be impressed by his prowess on the court. But it went deeper than just wanting to show off. He wanted Levi to know him. 

"Hey, hey Eren! Wake up, dude!"

Eren blinked at Jean as a soggy piece of bread whacked him in the side of the face. He reached out smacked Jean upside the head with well practiced ease and the other boy yelped in pain.

"What the fuck, asshole?"

Jean frowned at him, rubbing the back of his neck. The noise of the lunchroom and their friends snickering filtered back in through Eren's abstraction. 

"I was talking to you, bro, and you've been spacing for the last ten minutes. What's with you lately?"

Eren scowled as he peeled the wet wheat product off his face. 

"Nothings 'with' me. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my face."

He got up, dumped his mostly empty Styrofoam tray in the trash and slipped out of the cafeteria. He headed for the bathroom at the end of the corridor that led to the loading dock rather than the more frequented one by the front hall. He didn't particularly want to interact with people at the moment and the one person he did want to see wasn't anywhere to be found. Eren wondered about that. 

It seemed slightly odd to him, now that he thought about it, that he had never noticed someone as distinctive as Levi hanging out around the school. It wasn't particularly unusual that they didn't share any classes, Paradis high school was massive and their grade particularly so, with upwards of eight hundred juniors. When he considered the fact that the art rooms were on the fourth floor and the physical education department was in the basement it made more sense, but he never even saw him by the lockers, with the exception of the fateful day they landed in detention and even then he hadn't noticed the other boy until he was called out. Where the  _ hell _ did Levi go when he wasn't in class?

He didn't want to think that he never noticed such an  _ obvious  _ person because he was actually that self absorbed. He wasn't like that...was he?

The sound of laughter coming from the bathroom a few steps away interrupted his thoughts. Like any building as old as PHS, certain areas had developed lore over the years. A popular myth was that there was an old swimming pool in the basement, emptied and boarded up after a student drowned in the early eighties. Several legends involved the haunting of the backstage of the auditorium and one in particular that Eren happened to confirm when he was a lowly misdirected freshman was that the whole maintenance corridor behind the cafeteria (including this bathroom) was a haven of lawlessness that even Principal Cochran didn't bother to tackle. 

Eren shrugged and pushed his way into the bathroom, immediately overcome by a cloud of smoke that set his eyes watering. Paradis High was a mostly non-smoking campus, mostly because students weren't supposed to smoke, but many did, and rather than fight a losing battle that turned all the school's bathrooms into dugouts, Principal Cochran looked the other way if students smoked on the roof deck or along the fence by the bleachers. Apparently this bathroom was another exception. 

Eren looked down, ignoring the unsavory types who seemed to be occupying the other end of the decently sized space, stepped up to the closest sink and started washing his face. A voice from behind him sounded startlingly close. 

"Hey Petra, isn't that the joker who knocked you over?"

Eren froze when a soft female voice spoke up.

"Sure looks like it."

The male voice spoke again, closer this time.

"Hey Gunther, I think our friend here is lost. You wanna help me give him directions?" 

Without any other warning Eren was grabbed from behind and smacked into the porcelain sink bowl before being slammed into the back of the door and solidly pinned. His head swam for a moment. He had taken harder knocks on the court but he was still disoriented and could taste blood in his mouth from where his teeth cut his lip. A tiny trickle was oozing out of his nose.

He stopped struggling for a moment to calculate his odds. He was decent in a fight but he was obviously outnumbered and these guys had already gotten the jump on him and blocked his means of escape. He could usually rely on his height as an advantage but he only had about an inch on the angry looking blonde who had him pinned against the wall. The stone faced boy with a purple mohawk behind him wasn't as tall as his buddy but looked more than capable of handling himself in a fight. 

_ Fuck, I'm screwed. Still, I can't show weakness or I'm finished. _

Eren hissed between his teeth, grateful than none of them felt cracked or loosened from their encounter with a solid surface.

"Get the  _ fuck _ off me if you know what's good for you."

The boy with the mohawk, Gunther, looked uncertain, but the blonde laughed in his face. 

"Still a disrespectful piece of shit, huh? I think you need a lesson in manners, too." 

Without moving the arm that had Eren pinned against the door he lifted his knee and buried it in his stomach just below his solar plexus. The breath whooshed from his lungs as he doubled over and the other boy let him drop. 

"Not so brave without your body guards,  _ huh _ ?"

Eren tried to cover his face, fully aware that the next blow would be worse now that his face was on level with the guy's knee when a softly voiced command sucked all the air out of the room. 

"That's  _ fucking _ enough, Eld." 

"Aww come on, Levi, I was just gonna mess him up a little bit."

_ Levi _ ? 

"You fucking stupid? You think successfully ambushing one guy in a toilet means you can take on the entire basketball team?"

Eren coughed and looked up at the group of people around him, recognizing them now as the group Levi had been standing with that day in the hallway. Along with Eld, Gunther, and Petra, was another guy whose name he didn't know standing next to a girl with spiky pink hair. Gunther didn't really look interested in the fight, despite his initial appearance. He turned to the unnamed couple and took a puff of a joint they had been passing back and forth, settling back against the wall. Disinterest radiated from his demeanor.

Levi stood the farthest away from the group but his presence dominated the room. He was in his ever present black boots, skinny jeans, and a Black Sabbath t-shirt topped by a long black trench coat. As he watched, the black haired boy took a long drag from the cigarette in his hand and breathed the smoke out through his nose. Eren didn't know whether to feel relief or concern. His immediate reaction was to think of Levi as an ally, but aside from a few conversations and a sort of vague camaraderie he really had no basis for that opinion. 

Eld shifted uncomfortably and scowled.

"You didn't seem so concerned about that when  _ you _ laid him out."

Levi spat eloquently into the sink at his left elbow and raised an eyebrow. The two rings that decorated his dark brow flashed in the artificial light, drawing Eren's eye.

"That was different."

Eld seemed to mull this over for a moment, more conflicted now than he was before. 

"Well why not finish the job, then, when we have the chance? If what you say is true he's gonna bring his buddies back here anyway. May as well earn the beating in advance."

Petra gasped.

"Eld! That's crazy, that makes us no better than  _ them _ ." 

Eren struggled to his feet, his mind in turmoil. Both his stomach and this ego were bruised. He wanted to throw a punch so badly he could feel his muscles tensing, but obviously de-escalation was the general consensus and he was still outnumbered - plus his head had started to pound rather unpleasantly from the initial blow. He opened his mouth but Levi didn't give him the chance to speak.

"Oi, are you gonna start shit or does this make us even?"

It took Eren a minute longer than it should have to figure out that the 'us' Levi was referring to was not  _ them _ personally but the groups they represented. He was about to tell them all to fuck off but something flashed in Levi's eyes that brought him up short. No words passed between them but Eren could read his usually enigmatic expression clear as day: Levi was  _ asking _ him to back down and just in that split second, for no reason he could identify, it made him want to.

This dangerous looking boy with his indifferent, devil may care attitude was, in his own way trying to help him. Eren could almost see the thin line he was treading. He obviously didn't want to go against his friends for someone he barely knew, but he spoke up just the same. Maybe the imbalance of justice bothered him. It couldn't be that he actually cared what happened to him.

"Yeah, we're even."

Eld turned his back, still pissed and ready to face off against Levi again. The shorter man blinked and when he opened his eyes the look he had given Eren was gone, replaced by icy cold indifference. Levi completely disregarded his friend's threatening stance, never taking his eyes off Eren.

"Well get the fuck out of here then."

Eren's stomach dropped, fury, humiliation, and disappointment churning through him as he wrenched open the door and disappeared down the hall.


	9. Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Petra is very good at getting Levi to spill the tea.

Levi watched Eren vanish with mixed feelings and was brought back to the moment by Eld stepping into his personal space. 

"What the fuck, Levi? You call him out and fucking  _ tackle _ his ass for a beating in front of the  _ whole school _ but nobody else can lay a finger on him?"

Levi stared him down for a moment, pulling a fresh cigarette out and lighting it to give himself a minute to think. He had meant what he said about the basketball team retaliating- they were a bunch of huge ass motherfuckers and his guys wouldn't go down easy which would make it an absolute bloodbath- but if he was  _ really _ being honest the reason he had intervened was that he just couldn't watch Eren on the receiving end of a beating. 

Plain and simple. 

They weren't  _ friends _ ...but he and Eren had developed a rapport this week and he couldn't deny that the other guy had the potential to be a decent human being underneath all his privilege and jock douchebaggery.

Then there was his face.

It was a pretty nice fucking face and of all the ways to mess it up that Levi could think of, none involved a fist or a knee cap. He took a deep breath and rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger, feeling antsy as hell. The nicotine was helping, but barely. It had been a long fucking week. He decided to go with that. He reached out and put his arm around his friend, knowing how unsettling Eld would find that since he rarely touched anyone.

"Come on, man, chill the fuck out already. How do you even  _ have _ so much fucking energy? Tilda, can I get that joint?"

He gestured at Ollie's spikey, pink haired girlfriend and she nodded distractedly, leaning forward and passing the J to him, which he pressed to Eld's lips. 

"Better, right? Come on, beat downs in bathroom stalls, is this some teen movie? What happened by the lockers was in the heat of the moment. It was fair and square. When Eren came at me I reacted out of self-defense." 

Eld had followed him reluctantly after passing the J to Ollie but froze midstep. It took Levi thirty seconds to realize his error. 

Petra walked up to him and frowned.

" _ Eren _ ?" 

Eld shook his head in disbelief.

"Since when are you on a  _ first name basis _ with that asshole?"

_ Shit _ .

"Oh come on guys, everyone in the whole school knows who the  _ Rogue Titan _ is…"

He tried to pass his familiarity off with a shrug but his friends weren't fooled. He should have known that they would never be fooled by him making a basketball reference. Petra crossed her arms looking more baffled than upset. Apparently Eld had the market cornered on upset. 

"Since when do you give  _ two coherent fucks  _ about basketball?"

Finally something he could answer honestly. 

"I don't! He gave me a ride home last night, that's all. He's not so bad. Can we just fucking drop this now? What's done is done."

Eld looked like he swallowed something sour. He obviously wanted to argue but Levi was absolutely finished defending himself. The taller boy turned decisively and stalked out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Petra looked like she wanted to follow, but Levi shook his head.

"Don't worry, he'll be back. He just needs to cool off."

"How do you know?"

Levi snorted.

"He forgot his backpack."

Laughter rippled through the room and the tension bled out slowly making it easier to breathe. He turned his back on the small ginger haired girl. She was wearing a fluffy sweater covered in cats today and a matching headband. She looked adorable, but it didn't take away from the shrewd look in her eyes. She followed him through the room silently and he knew she was formulating exactly what she wanted to say. That was Petra's way. She was quiet until she got a bee in her bonnet...then she let you have it. 

The room they were in was a haven, a small oasis where he and his crew could chill out and relax when they couldn't be in Ms. Foote's classroom. It was a standard public bathroom except over the years it had undergone a number of unauthorized modifications. The bank of sinks along the mirrored wall was intact as were two out of the six originally placed toilet stalls. The rest had been dismantled, toilets and all, and replaced with couches and stools that were pushed up under the windows.

Nearly every solid surface of the room, including the ceiling, was covered in graffiti, most of which Levi and his friends had drawn. He tried not to think about the first time he and his crew had been in here...when it was ruled by Erwin, Hanji and their posse...

He breathed out an amused sigh when he realised dully that the only time he didn't feel the Erwin induced ache in his chest was when Eren was blundering around complicating his life. Petra sank down on the long couch under the window and patted the cushion next to her expectantly. He considered thwarting her and continuing to stencil the glass pane above her head but he gave up as soon as he considered it. With Petra he would only be prolonging the inevitable. 

He sat down next to her and shifted his weight, laying on his back and pillowing his head in her lap. For someone so petite and narrow she was awfully comfortable to lay on. She plucked the cigarette from between his lips and took a drag, absentmindedly stroking his hair back off his forehead while she spoke. He closed his eyes and exhaled, not for the first time wishing there was any part of him that wanted Petra  _ that way.  _ It would be so simple. He knew there was a part of her that wanted him before she knew the truth about his sexuality and a tiny part of her wanted him, still. If he could love her body the way he loved her mind and treasured her heart he could avoid all these boy troubles.

But it was not to be.

He was destined to always want what wasn't good for him and keep going back to it while it slowly killed him, like the addict he was. Still, he could enjoy the affection he got from Petra in the spirit of kindness in which it was meant. He secretly craved that sort of closeness...had indulged in it with Erwin, before it started tearing him apart.

"You haven't been acting like yourself this week, L, and that worries me, because I know something is wrong and that you haven't told me what."

Levi stared up at the ceiling, focusing on a particular spot where Gunther had drawn a shockingly accurate reproduction of a portion of the Sistine Chapel. He tried to keep his voice to a careful monotone. If he let himself feel any of what he was going to tell his best friend, he would go to pieces. 

"I'm not sleeping with Erwin anymore."

The fingers curling through his hair and drawing patterns in his scalp didn't falter. He wasn't surprised that Petra didn't see this as news, he had made this declaration before. 

"I'm serious this time. I can't do it."

"Did something happen?"

"No...I just  _ can't _ . It's...just not working for me anymore."

Petra nodded, taking another puff of his cigarette before placing it back between his lips. 

"Okay...but that's not everything."

Levi swallowed his mind ranging back on the chaos of the night before, surprised at how he could be so unsettled by something he didn't care about.

"My father's name is Matsuoka Haru. Mikasa found him when she was living in Japan and now she wants us to be one big, happy  _ fucking _ family."

At that Petra's hand did falter...but only just. 

"Shit."

"Yeah…'shit' pretty much sums it up. Then I have all this fucking detention drama, and…"

"...and you can't go to Erwin to take the edge off."

Levi hated talking about his feelings. He felt much more comfortable expressing himself through art, but it did feel nice to unload a bit to someone who had his back. The human contact wasn't so bad either. They sat in silence for a few minutes. He finished his cigarette and crushed it against the floor, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the gentle drag of fingers through his hair. He just wanted to relax and forget everything. 

Forget the look of bewildered betrayal on Eren's face when he dismissed him earlier. Forget the silly half fantasy that it was Eren's fingers dragging through his hair...

This week had been so stressful between his 'breakup' and worrying about his mom, all this Eren shit...not to mention it had been only been a few weeks since Petra told him about the rape and he'd planned and executed the Reaper mural. The emotional roller coaster was nearly impossible to handle. He always laid low after big 'jobs' and the mural was his most decisive yet. It occurred to him now that the fact that he hadn't hit the streets in a while probably wasn't helping his mood. 

The warning bell rang, startling Levi out of his half stupor. He sat up slowly and turned around, tousling Petra's hair. She squeaked and batted him away. Her grin faded into an apologetic smile.

"I wish you had told me about Erwin sooner. We're supposed to be going for a movie night tonight."

Levi exhaled and leaned back against the couch, resting his head against the wall. There wasn't time for another stogie but he was already itching.

'Movie night' wasn't exactly a euphemism, they usually  _ did _ have a movie playing in the background, but it was accompanied by a significant amount of recreational drug use and general fuckery. Even with Erwin around he would be able to unwind.

"No...it's fine. I need to figure out how to be friends with him properly. I don't want to make you guys choose…"

Petra gave him a look but it was Ollie who answered, Levi's eyes widened because even though it didn't bother him for his friends to know his business, he didn't realize the others were listening. 

"There's no choice, man. Erwin's the shit, but you're our brother."

The unexpected admission made Levi's stomach flutter. He never quite understood why his friends were so devoted to him, but he returned the sentiment.

Petra smiled as they all got up and started getting their shit together for class. She looked sideways at him and something gave him the feeling he didn't want to hear the next thing she was going to say.

"You know...you could invite  _ Eren _ ."

Levi froze, his mouth opened in a little "O" of shock. When Petra didn't bring Eren up on the couch he figured he had gotten off the hook with that one. He should have known better.

"Why...why would I do that?"

Petra shrugged, but Levi wasn't fooled by the casual gesture. 

"Well you said it yourself, 'he's not so bad.' Also, if you're really worried about retaliation then maybe we should just show him a good time. Smooth things over between our crews."

Levi grumbled a non response as Eld popped back into the room looking calmer and just slightly sheepish. He headed straight to grab his bag without making eye contact with anyone. Tilda stifled a giggle. Levi raised an eyebrow at Petra and gestured at Eld with his chin, she had always been the emo whisperer.

"And what do I do about him?"

Petra's lips twitched.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure he's no more of an ass than usual."

Levi didn't answer as they made their way out into the hallway. They were all going in opposite directions for sixth period but Petra lingered for a moment to get his response, not willing to walk away until he knew she was serious.

"I'll think about it."

That was all she was going to get and despite her tenacity it seemed like she knew it. She wove her arm through Eld's as they headed for the staircase and gave him a meaningful look.

"See that you do."


	10. Unpredictable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren has a bit of an identity crisis.

Levi was still thinking about it when he walked into the empty detention room and took his seat by the window. The annoying little shits from the previous day seemed to have served their sentence with just one day and he was relieved not to see them, but a new anxiety cropped up in their absence. He had been going back and forth for the last three periods over whether or not to invite Eren to hang out tonight and he just couldn't make up his mind. 

His stream of consciousness had separated into several possible futures: (1)keep his head down for the rest of detention and avoid Eren until they graduate, (2)invite him to hang out tonight and feel like an idiot because he says  _ no _ , (3)invite him and feel like an idiot because he says  _ yes _ . He still hadn't decided when the boy in question walked into the room, tight lipped and looking more annoyed than Levi had seen him since Monday. The blood was cleaned off his face but he had the slight shadow of a bruise on his cheek bone and the smudge of one on the bridge of his nose. Seeing it made Levi irrationally angry. 

The Titan headed toward the seat in front of Levi's out of habit and then paused, probably realizing that there were twenty six other desks in the classroom he could sit down in. He was obviously pissed off about this afternoon, but judging by the fact that Levi didn't see half the basketball team waiting to disembowel him outside the classroom, it was probably just superficial annoyance. 

He hadn't decided where to sit yet when Mr. Mueller entered the top of the room looking unkempt and out of breath, as usual. Levi took out his phone and stood up to hand it over when the teacher held up his hands.

"Hey boys! I've got a bit of a surprise for you. I've gotten approval from Mrs. Cochran to spring you both for good behavior. Happy Friday. Oh, I'll see you on the court on Sunday, champ!" 

Mueller punched the air as he spoke, straightened his coat and bustled out of the room with a wave leaving the two of them gaping at the front of the room before they turned to look at each other. One look at Eren's stunned, slightly disappointed face narrowed Levi's previous three options down to two. He already felt like an idiot, so he wasn't risking much. 

"Hey."

Eren snapped his mouth shut, surprised that Levi had greeted him first. The vacant expression didn't last long.

"I guess you are probably expecting a big sloppy kiss for your  _ Robin Hood _ act during lunch today, huh?"

Levi blinked, taken aback. Annoyance seeped into his resolve.

" _ Actually, _ I was going to apologize for my friend being an idiot, but you are already familiar with being an idiot so why should I bother?"

Levi wanted to take back the words as soon as he spoke them, they were too harsh by half, but Eren just scowled at him, taking it in stride. 

"I guess I  _ was _ an idiot for thinking we were friends."

Levi's eyes widened in surprise. 

"What? What does that have to do...with…"

His mind raced as he tried to figure out what Eren was talking about and why he was so upset. It dawned on him that he would think the only reason he intervened on the other boy's behalf earlier was to keep from igniting a turf war. He obviously took too long to connect the dots because Eren turned to leave. 

"Hey, Eren,  _ wait _ !"

His name seemed to slow his steps.

"We  _ are _ friends. Sort of. I mean, maybe we  _ could _ be friends. Hanging out with you hasn't sucked."

Eren turned, rolling his eyes. 

"Who taught you how to speak to people like that? Were you raised in a fucking barn?"

Any other day Levi would have seen the humor in Eren's retort, but this particular week he just wasn't finding comments about his upbringing amusing. Love and support couldn't replace the fact that neither of the people who raised him had graduated from high school. He didn't put any stock in that whatsoever with regards to their value as human beings, but it hardly made him fit company for the queen of England. Uncharacteristic shame flooded him, which was both surprising and discomfiting. He was well aware of his shortcomings and had no interest in discussing them with a total stranger, whether he didn't want that person to stay a stranger or not. 

"You know what,  _ forget _ it." 

He stepped past Eren into the hall, his only thought  _ escape _ , but the fucking giant kept pace with him easily, remorse clear on his stupidly pretty face. 

"Hey, wait, what did I say?  _ Jeez _ , slow down. Come on, Levi, I'm sorry."

Levi drew up short, reacting to the apology.

"So he does know how to apologize."

Eren smirked and the way it teased his full lower lip made Levi's stomach drop.

_ Too pretty...too distracting...fuck... _

"I'm not a  _ complete _ asshole."

Levi's lips twitched and he checked his watch. Even though they were only about twenty minutes out from dismissal the building was practically deserted around them. It also meant Levi missed his bus. He must have muttered something under his breath because Eren responded to it. 

"You could just ask for a ride, you know, I'm standing right here."

"Eh, I wouldn't want to take advantage. The next one will come soon."

Eren shrugged.

"Well I guess...I'll see you around?"

Levi wondered if Eren realized how upset he sounded when he said that. Either way, it gave him the vote of confidence he needed to extend the invitation he had been dithering over.

"Uhm, actually...are you busy tonight? A bunch of us are gonna have a movie night and maybe you'd like to...hang out?"

Eren frowned at him as though being invited to hang out was the last thing he had expected to come out of Levi's mouth. It probably was. When the silence started to stretch Levi filled it. His skin was crawling with anxiety over Eren's response, his fingers twitching for a cigarette.

"I mean you probably already have plans with the team or whatever, right?"

Eren shook his head slightly.

"No we...I...never have plans...just basketball. I usually don't practice on Fridays or Saturdays so I can save my energy for the games…"

Levi tried to contain his frown. Eren was so larger than life with his buddies...could there really be so little going on with him? Then again, maybe it was normal for a spoiled rich kid with an actual home life to stay in on the weekends...

"Oh...kay...so...wanna come?" 

"Y-yeah sure. When...I mean uh, is it at your place?"

_ He said yes.  _

"No, meet me here. Well I mean not  _ here _ here. In front of the school. Seven thirty. We can walk over together. It's at a friend's place." 

Eren shrugged a bit and ran his hand through his just slightly too long hair in a gesture that was supposed to be casual but for some reason didn't seem that way at all. 

"Sounds good."

Levi nodded and turned to go, finally feeling an emotion other than dread at the thought of going to Erwin's place tonight.

"Are you sure you don't need a ride?"

Levi was already walking again, escaping with his  _ yes _ firmly in hand. He looked over his shoulder as he made his way toward the front entrance. 

"Absolutely. You should go surprise Zeke and Faye, be a little unpredictable, you know? See you tonight."

° ☆ °

"Eri!" 

Faye skipped down the front steps of Shiganshina middle school and barreled into him, nearly knocking him over. Eren patted his little sister on the head affectionately as her twin walked up behind her looking just as excited to see him. 

"You squirts need a ride?" 

It was almost gratifying how quickly they abandoned their friends to go with him. They climbed into the Kia amidst squeals of delight when they caught sight of the box of donuts and steaming hot chocolates that awaited them. Eren smiled indulgently as he pulled out onto the road, feeding off the twins' mood. He couldn't remember the last time he had surprised them, and the joy in their faces made him feel uncomfortable. He could pick them up every Friday after school, but he never did, even though he didn't have practice. It had never even occurred to him until Levi had made his throwaway comment. 

Zeke took a sloppy bite of a Boston Cream.

"What's the occasion, Eri?"

Eren smiled into the rearview mirror, trying to make light of his unease.

"I need a reason?"

Zeke shrugged and Faye cut in to chatter excitedly about how she had been asked to the Holiday Dance by Billy Graham, who she never thought would be brave enough to ask her and it's about time, because it's only  _ two _ weeks away. He was surprised to learn that Zeke didn't have to ask anyone to the dance because  _ of course _ he would be taking his girlfriend, Evelyn Cobb. 

He didn't know which fact was more unsettling, that his twelve year old brother had a girlfriend, or that he hadn't had the slightest idea. How much was going on around him that he never noticed? He didn't think he was  _ so _ obsessed with basketball that he just didn't see anything else, but the only other option was that he was completely self absorbed. 

He tried not to think too much about it for the rest of the afternoon, to the point where even his parents noticed his unusual level of abstraction. His mom had just asked him to pass the mashed potatoes for the third time before he heard her.

"Are you sure you're okay, honey? You seem a little off tonight." 

He flashed the now silent table his classic grin. He was more apprehensive than he thought he would be about hanging out with Levi tonight and he couldn't get his mind to settle down. 

"I'm fine, really mom. It's been a long week."

"Right...maybe you should turn in early instead of family game night."

_ Shit...forgot about family game night. _

Eren focused on his plate and pushed around some peas trying to sound casual.

"Actually I'm planning on catching a movie tonight with some friends."

"Oh...okay…"

She looked like she was about to ask more questions but his father cut in gruffly. 

"Now, Carla, leave the boy alone. He's sixteen years old. You have fun, Champ, just make sure you're in top form for Sunday's game! The Tigers are no joke and they've won three out of four this season…"

Eren sighed inwardly with relief. He had worried for a few minutes over whether his parents would be difficult about him going out since he did anything but play basketball so rarely, but it seemed his generally good behavior had earned him a decent amount of trust.

Dinner was over by six forty five which gave him just enough time to shower and spend way longer than necessary picking out what he was going to wear. Levi was a pretty edgy guy but his friends seemed to be an eclectic mix so he just settled on something he felt comfortable in rather than trying to figure out how to fit in with a group of people he both didn't know and would also, quite likely, not appreciate the fact he had been invited. 

He finally settled on a pair of pale, ripped blue jeans and an evergreen colored sweater that clung to his toned chest and abs. He knew this wasn't a date- Levi just asked him to come hang out with friends- but there was definitely some kind of chemistry going on between them. Eren frowned at himself as he styled his hair, trying to temper his expectations. Just because Levi was gay didn't mean he was interested  _ or _ single. He also had no idea Eren liked guys...so there was no way his invitation had anything behind it...

Eren paused, interrupting his mental rambling. 

"What the hell am I doing?" 

He stared at his reflection and for a horrifying moment he didn't recognize himself. Eren Yeager didn't  _ date _ or go to the movies on friday night. He didn't agonize over mysterious, creepy guys who wore makeup and leather trench coats. 

He trained and he studied. He was focused and determined. He  _ was _ basketball. It's everything he'd wanted since he was old enough to want things. If he took his eyes off the prize for even a moment, it would all slip through his fingers. 

So why did it feel so damn good to not be thinking about basketball for a minute?

The other guys on the team teased him occasionally for not dating or going out with them on the weekends but he served it right back up to them on the court. They could play around all they wanted and end up behind some desk for the rest of their lives...he was going pro. Of course, they weren't really that difficult to turn down. He wasn't interested in girls and that honestly seemed like all the guys ever wanted to talk about lately. 

So what the hell was he doing? And why the hell was he so eager to do it?

He swiped up his phone and slipped it into his pocket determined to ignore his existential crisis for the moment.

If he dwelled on it any longer, he would be late. 

° ☆ °

Paradis high school looked like a sleeping behemoth in the darkness, the orange street lamps casting their gap-toothed glow at regular intervals around the perimeter of the building. Eren parked across from the front entrance and swiped his Adidas track jacket off the passenger seat. He didn't feel cold, but he slid the jacket on nevertheless. He had no idea how far they would be walking or how long he would have to wait for Levi to meet him. 

His steps faltered as he reached the sidewalk. He hadn't previously considered the possibility that Levi was just fucking with him. He didn't  _ seem _ like the type of person to just leave a guy standing on a street corner on a Friday night in the middle of December, but he really didn't know him at all…

"Oi, you alright?"

Eren felt his whole body jolt as a shadow at the top of the stone wall by the front gate lengthened and separated from the surrounding darkness. An ember sizzled as Levi stepped forward and hopped to the ground, his combat boots thudding decisively against the pavement as he landed. He was wearing the same long, leather coat as he had at school today but the rest of the outfit was different. His black jeans were torn up even worse than Eren's and covered in dozens of patches. A thick black belt covered in studs hung low from his hips and the black shirt he was wearing had slashes across the chest making it look like he just narrowly escaped a tiger attack. 

His clothing wasn't the only thing that was different. His usual fringe was swept to the side giving Eren an unobstructed view of the thick black liner and shadow around his eyes, which looked strangely colorless in the orange light. His lips were filled in with the compulsory black lipstick and he had swapped out his facial piercings from the more innocuous hoops that he wore at school to black tinted spikes. Eren couldn't be absolutely certain in the poor lighting, but he could have sworn that a chain from one of the many piercings in his left ear was actually connected to his lip. 

"Yeah...I just wasn't sure where to meet you."

Levi stood back and made a slightly mocking, courtly bow. 

"I tend to stand out."

Eren inked for a moment and shook his head, falling into step beside the shorter man, who started leading the way down the street toward the community college. Something about Levi's entrance jostled a memory in the corner of his mind, but it was too elusive to grasp. He shook it off and tried to make conversation.

"Were you waiting long?"

The tip of Levi's cigarette flashed in the darkness.

"Nah, I just got here. I honestly didn't think you'd show."

"I didn't think I would either."

They lapsed into an awkward silence as they crossed the street and skirted the campus to turn off onto one of the side streets. A stiff breeze hit them and Levi shivered, eyeing him suspiciously.

" _ Fuck _ this weather. Don't you ever get cold?"

Eren shrugged, still comfortable. 

"I've always run hot."

Levi muttered something that sounded a lot like ' _ haven't you _ ' but since it seemed like he wasn't necessarily meant to hear it, he chose not to comment. Not that it didn't make him grin a little bit wider. 

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why didn't you think you would show? Got a problem with movies or something?"

Eren thought about exactly how truthful he wanted to be with his response. 

"I don't really hang out much...usually too busy training. Weekends are kinda when I recover before games. Also...I'm not sure your friends are gonna be so happy to see me."

Levi grunted in response as they turned up the walkway to an innocuous looking detached house. He dropped his cigarette on the concrete and he ground it to ash with his boot.

"Then why did you come?"

Eren bit his lip, feeling strangely brave out in the dark with this boy he barely knew who tied his stomach in knots. Winners were only winners because they took the shot everyone else was too afraid to take.

They stopped in front of the door and Levi turned to face him.

"I wanted to see you."

The other boy's skeptical expression dropped for a moment and he blinked up at Eren, his glacier blue eyes wide. His lips parted slightly and Eren could almost hear the complete mental silence beneath his disarmed shock. The barest tinge of pink was visible on his cheeks under the porch light.

A magnetic pull flared between them when their eyes met and both of them took a small step forward, bringing them close enough so that all Eren would have to do to touch Levi's arm was extend his elbow.

Unfortunately, he never got the chance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love cliffhanger chapter endings! Don't you, Lovelies?  
> ♡DiLo


	11. Surreal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Levi finally gets to unwind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Color Me Yours...  
> The other boy's skeptical expression dropped for a moment and he blinked up at Eren, his glacier blue eyes wide. His lips parted slightly and Eren could almost hear the complete mental silence beneath his disarmed shock. The barest tinge of pink was visible on his cheeks under the porch light.  
> A magnetic pull flared between them when their eyes met and both of them took a small step forward, bringing them close enough so that all Eren would have to do to touch Levi's arm was extend his elbow.  
> Unfortunately, he never got the chance.

The door to the house swung open, bathing them both in golden light. A refined yet resonant voice rippled toward them through the chill night air.

"There you are, we thought you might have frozen to death."

Levi flinched at the sound of the other person's voice and Eren turned, finding himself face to face with the naked Adonis from Levi's sketchbook. China-blue eyes raked him from head to toe briefly before turning to focus on Levi. Eren looked back and forth between them, abashed when Levi seemed to shrink in on himself. It wasn't so much a physical movement, but Eren could practically  _ feel _ the other boy projecting his withdrawal. Levi had claimed decisively that this man wasn't his boyfriend but the energy between them was...unmistakably intimate.

He didn't like it one bit.

"I'm Eren."

He stuck his hand out directly in the path of the hand the golden Ken doll was extending toward Levi. He stopped and smiled at Eren, shaking his hand genially enough.

"Erwin. Welcome. Petra said Levi was bringing a  _ friend _ ."

The man in question shivered on the doorstep and Erwin stepped back, ushering them inside. The interior of the house was completely at odds with the bland, shabby exterior. A wall of warmth seemed to roll over them as they entered and he unzipped his jacket, instantly overheated. The entire place was filled with comfortable looking mismatching furniture. The curtains were a gauzy, diaphanous material that reminded Eren of a Moroccan bazaar and the carpets that covered the scraped wood floor were thickly plush. A flat screen t.v. was mounted on the wall across from the couch and though it was on, nobody in the room was paying any attention to it.

A beautiful orange and yellow bong that was at least four feet tall sat on the floor next to a glass-topped coffee table. The bitter, tangy scent of marijuana was cut by the sweet aroma of the cherry flavored tobacco that sizzled from the hookah's tray.

The house gave off the appearance of being cluttered, but upon closer inspection, Eren realised that the items strewn about seemingly at random fell into two categories...drug paraphernalia and art supplies. Tubes of paint, palettes, cups filled with brushes, charcoal pencils, and canvases were everywhere as well as pill bottles, sealed syringes, jars filled with dried pot buds, and vials of powder. He had never seen so many illegal substances in one place.

Levi and Erwin had been conversing quietly behind him but the shorter boy broke away and walked further into the room. Eren followed feeling awkward, since he didn't really know anyone else, and the only people he recognized had been on team 'beat Eren to a bloody pulp' the last time they had been in a room together.

The heat seemed to be affecting Levi as well because he slid his coat off and placed it down on a pile of other coats in the entryway. Eren followed suit, trying not to be too distracted by Levi's body. He had never seen him without some kind of coat or jacket and the loose fitting outerwear really didn't do his body justice. Eren was surrounded by guys with impressive builds on the basketball court, but for some reason none of them had the appeal for him that Levi did.

His black shirt clung to broad shoulders that tapered to lean hips and a mouth-watering ass. His entire body seemed designed in perfect proportion to his height and he carried himself as though he had absolutely no idea how striking he was. He pushed his knitted sleeves back to expose his forearms and Eren was unsurprised to see tattoos decorating his pale, cream colored skin. They fit his image, as did the fresh cigarette that was hanging out of his mouth, which Erwin leaned just too close to light for him. 

"You're staring."

Eren whipped his head around in surprise, heat flooding his cheeks that he had been caught. Luckily Levi was already far enough away that he wouldn't have heard the comment.

"I...I..."

The speaker, a tall, skinny brunette with square framed glasses and a wide smile, interrupted his denial with an amused snort.

"Don't worry, we all stare from time to time, there's a lot going on... _ there _ ..."

She gestured vaguely in Levi's direction with her thin, spidery fingers and then stuck her hand out.

"I'm Zoe Hanji, the other proprietor of this den of iniquity."

Eren grasped her hand.

"Eren. Nice to meet you."

She gave him an assessing look, not releasing his hand until he gave it an awkward tug.

"What?"

She shrugged casually and led him further into the room.

"Nothing. Levi's just never brought any friends around before."

She deposited him on the couch and turned, disappearing into the kitchen. Levi sat down on the back of the couch by Eren's shoulder and gestured toward the other people in the room.

"Do you know everyone?"

Levi's friends from the bathroom were strewn around the room as casually as everything else. They looked up and acknowledged them when he pointed them out.

"You've met Erwin and Hanji, this is their house. That's Moblit...he's with Hanji."

He gestured to a tall dark haired man in the corner who looked stoned out of his mind and then to the couple lounging on the pillows next to the boy with a mohawk.

"That's Gunther, Ollie and Tilda."

The tall blond who had kicked him in the stomach was sitting on the other side of the coffee table with a girl perched on the side of his chair.

"You know Eld and Petra, of course."

Levi pointed out a few other people who were milling around, but since none of them were high school students he didn't pay much attention. Eren mumbled a greeting, feeling uncomfortably out of his element. Eld muttered something under his breath and Petra swatted him on the shoulder.

"I already told you it's not a big deal, Eld. Levi's been in detention all week over this..."

Eren tried to reach for his indignation at the sight of the blond boy's face...he did owe him a fine tuning for busting him up, but he found it hard to grasp. He bit his lip when he realized he had never apologized for the incident that ignited their enmity. From their perspective, he was the one deserving of comeuppance. He cleared his throat.

"Listen, Petra, I am sorry for knocking into you. It really was an accident."

She smiled graciously and came to sit next to him on the couch, tossing her hair over her shoulder with relish as she sashayed away from her irritated friend.

"Apology accepted."

Her physical and verbal acceptance seemed to change the tenor of the room. Everyone seemed friendlier and more relaxed...except Eld.

" _ Fuck's sake _ ."

He whipped his head around refusing to make eye contact with anyone but didn't say anything else. Petra shrugged.

"It's nice to meet you Eren. I'm glad Levi took my advice."

She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially,

"He can be a little stubborn sometimes."

Eren blinked at that...why did  _ Petra _ want him invited? His stomach dropped a bit at the realization that maybe  _ Levi _ didn't actually want him here. Could this be some kind of set up because  _ Petra _ wanted to take her shot with him? It wouldn't be the first time he'd been confessed to...that happened with ego boosting frequency...but if that was the case  _ tonight _ it would be...complicated, not to mention disappointing.

"I'm sitting right here, you know."

Petra smirked at Levi mischievously and giggled.

"How could I forget?"

Erwin interrupted their banter, distracting Eren with his presence. His energy filled the room around them.

"Okay, let's take a vote! Amélie, Quills, or Magnolia?"

Eren had never heard of any of the movies so he let the others choose. Apparently Magnolia was a group favorite, so Erwin started it up. Levi swung his legs over, slid down into the seat between him and Petra and made himself comfortable. Eren didn't understand the movie at all but nobody was watching it - paying attention became impossible, anyway, the moment Levi sat down. It seemed so casual and familiar on the other boy's part, yet Eren was hyper aware of his every move and breath. It made him worry all over again that his preoccupation was entirely one sided.

Hanji floated in and out of the room offering people hits on a freshly packed bowl (which Eren denied). He tried to focus on the movie again but realized it would probably have made more sense if he  _ was _ high. He was more interested in the murmured argument between Levi and Petra about 'postmodernism', he never had any idea there were such staunch divisions between different traditions in the art world.

Without much to contribute to any of the conversations around him, he pasted a politely interested look on his face and tried to keep his heart from beating out of his chest every time Levi's shoulder or thigh brushed against him. It was clear the other boy was trying to relax, but Eren could tell he wasn't succeeding. He  _ seemed  _ calm- his voice and demeanor were neutral, but his leg kept jittering and jumping, practically vibrating with nerves. If Eren hadn't been right next to him, he wouldn't have noticed. He wanted to reach out and still him, but he crushed the impulse ruthlessly, he had no idea if it would be a welcome advance.

About twenty minutes into the movie Erwin came and sat down next to Petra. He spilled a vial of white powder out onto the glass topped coffee table and started cutting it into thin lines with a razor blade.

Eren watched him wide-eyed. Smoking pot was one thing, snorting coke was entirely another. Erwin smiled.

"Who wants to play in the Snow with me?"

Moblit appeared and leaned over the table, quickly snorting a line with a small paper tube Erwin handed him. Erwin snorted the next one and held the tube out to Petra.

"Nah, pass."

Levi lit a cigarette, his third of the night, and exhaled like it was painful. His eyes didn't even flicker towards the table top.

"You know what I want, Erwin."

The Adonis winked and got up, passing the straw to Eren who looked at it as though it had sprouted hands and was about to punch him in the face. Levi looked at him and laughed, a low breathy sound, plucking it out of his fingers.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Eren. This is just how we chill."

He passed the straw to Tilda who cleared the table and went to sit back down on the cushions with Ollie who was already halfway through a six pack of beer. Eren was strangely relieved that Levi wasn't going to snort the powder, for a reason he couldn't identify. It didn't really bother him to see the other kids...indulging...but the idea of Levi being mixed up in something less than healthy concerned him. It was bad enough that he didn't seem to be able to go without a cigarette for five minutes.

Eren had never put much thought into doing drugs. Obviously they were everywhere and relatively easy to procure, even as early as middle school. But like everything else, they would only distract him from basketball. He didn't really judge the stoners, it just wasn't something he was into. He wasn't edgy or unhappy like they always seemed to be and playing on the varsity team gave him enough social capital that he dominated his chosen scene without having to do other things to seem 'cool'.

As if all those reasons weren't enough, Coach did mandatory surprise drug testing every now and then. Another team in their league had suffered a performance enhancing drug scandal a few years back and Nanaba had taken the measures on her own to make sure the same embarrassment wouldn't befall her team. The monsters  _ she _ created were of the entirely natural variety.

Erwin reappeared, perching on the back of the couch behind Eren and leaned forward toward Levi.

"I keep a stash just for you."

Erwin licked his thumb and pressed a small slip of pink paper to his skin no bigger than the pad of his finger and to Eren's wide eyed shock, pressed his finger into Levi's mouth and stroked down along his tongue. Eren pressed his lips together, not liking the way Erwin's finger lingered in Levi's mouth obviously longer than was strictly necessary to pass the tab. Petra laughed softly, getting Eren's attention.

"Oh, you're in for a treat tonight."

"Uhm...why? What... _ was _ that?"

" _ That _ , my uneducated friend, was a Blotter."

"A...a what?"

Petra rolled her eyes, but her tone wasn't mocking.

"Acid? LSD..."

Erwin had vanished into the kitchen again and Levi turned back to the movie. Eren mumbled that he'd heard of that one and swallowed hard as Levi slumped down against him, practically cuddling against his sweater. His voice was low and relaxed and seemed to hum through Eren's skin. He doubted he was tripping just yet, butnmaybe the atmosphere of the room was finally affecting him. The sudden contact was slightly overwhelming.

"You alright rich boy? Have we scared you yet?"

Eren shifted and Levi sat up, looking at him intently with his striking eyes.

"Not just yet."

The same energy that had flowed between them outside the house flared up again and Eren licked his lips as he looked into Levi's eyes. The other boy had been on edge since Erwin opened the door and greeted them. There was obviously something between them and it was making Levi extremely uncomfortable. He wanted to take away the anxiety and discomfort he saw lurking in his eyes, but he didn't know how to do it. Maybe if he kissed him...

" _ Okay _ , where were we...?"

Erwin came back into the room and sat down on the floor right between Levi's legs, bursting their little bubble of tension. Levi blinked and redirected his attention to Erwin, stroking his fingers distractedly through the flaxen tresses in his lap.

Eren gritted his teeth. He had to curl his hand into a fist under his thigh to keep from shoving Erwin off Levi's lap. He was still in unfamiliar territory and didn't want to make a scene which would, in all likelihood, get him kicked out, but seeing the way Erwin just kept pushing himself onto Levi made him want to fly into a jealous rage. Before he was completely calm, Levi sighed and stared up at the ceiling, tilting his head toward Eren just slightly. His eyes looked strangely unfocused.

"Is it hot in here?"

Levi stood up, somehow managing not to step on or trip over Erwin. Petra, who had been smoking with Hange, giggled and scooted closer to Eren on the couch.

"Here we go. I would tell you not to look away but I don't think you'll be able to."

Eren looked at her in confusion. Was everyone in this group lusting after Levi?

"What happens now?"

"...you'll see..."

And he did. Levi stripped his shirt off and it slithered to the floor in a heap. He walked fluidly, as if the air was viscous and though he was obviously impaired, his movements were deliberate and graceful. He studied the blank wall in front of him for a few moments and then, to Eren's intense surprise picked up a palette and started squeezing paint out onto it.

"Is he...is he gonna paint  _ the wall _ ?"

Petra nodded in slow motion.

"Levi's a genius. I mean, all the time...but when he's tripping out it's like he just sees things nobody else does."

Eren sat transfixed. The closest he had ever come to seeing someone create art right in front of him was when his parents took them on a trip to the seaside and an artist on the boardwalk had drawn a caricature portrait of his family. This...was something else  _ entirely _ . Levi's paintbrush became an extension of his arm and he wielded it with confidence and accuracy as he drew bold strokes on his blank canvas.

"Can he just...is it alright for him to just...paint the walls like that?"

Some of the others were watching with interest (more interest than any of them had shown in the movie), but none of them seemed to think this was anything out of the ordinary.

Hanji appeared out of nowhere again and sat down on Petra's other side.

"You should see the rest of the house. All of us do it...Levi is just the only one who never plans it in advance."

Eren shook his head. This already would have been one of the weirdest nights of his life, but it just kept getting stranger. He sat watching for what seemed like an eternity, feeling slightly drowsy and numb after having inhaled a decent amount of secondhand pot smoke. At first he couldn't tell what Levi was drawing, but slowly a form started taking shape. It was the image of a woman's face that ended just below the tops of her shoulders. Long black hair cascaded down one shoulder and a hand clutched the other from below, as though she was wrapping her arms around herself.

Her face was delicate and beautiful and seemed slightly familiar, but took a turn for the surreal. One of her eyes was replaced by a blooming moonflower and her other eye, with it's long sweeping black lashes, was anguished. Eren could see the unshed tears in her eye, but the ones that fell transformed into flower petals that stuck to her hair. Her full lips pulled down tragically at the corners, conveying her pain so realistically it made Eren want to weep. Levi worked over his creation with complete focus, tirelessly, as though he was alone in an art studio instead drawing on a wall, in a room full of drunk, high teenagers...

...and a boy he barely knew who was becoming smitten with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Update, Lovelies! Several notes from this chapter:
> 
> (1) Magnolia is a trippy as fuck psychological drama that was released in 1999. Delve into it at your own risk, it makes significantly more sense if you're high. Poor Eren 😅
> 
> (2) Don't do drugs 🙄 or drink underage 🙄...or whatever. If you do, make sure you know who's taking you home.
> 
> (3) Addiction is actually no joke. If you or someone you love is suffering from addiction, call SAMHSA at 1-800-662-4357. They can guide you to the help you need. If you don't live in the U.S. and need help, or you just want to talk about it feel free to reach out and I'm sure together we can find a solution. You are worth too much to be wasted.
> 
> Stay safe,
> 
> ♡DiLo


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